Creative, clever or wild? The lengths Australians have gone to in the pursuit of buying their dream home

Buying a slab of beer for an agent or presenting a property vendor with a home-baked cake. Offering to pay a seller’s moving costs. Trying to put off rival auction bidders by lying that neighbours play loud music late at night. 

There seem to be no lengths to which some buyers will not go, in the grip of FOMO (fear of missing out) and in a desperate bid to secure a home of their own.

As the spring property season gets underway, new research released by Domain highlights some of the ingenious – or unusual – tactics purchasers have embraced in the past 12 months to be successful.

It also shows just how fanatical so many of us have become, especially as prices experience a steady recovery, and August saw the strongest run of clearance rates in the past two years across all capital cities.

“Many Australians can relate to that feeling of property obsession, going above and beyond in their property search to feel confident they are making the right decision,” said Rebecca Darley, Domain’s chief marketing officer.

“We can all laugh at the research findings, but the reality is you can sometimes get a little silly when searching for property.”

They’re among the reasons that Domain has developed a suite of new features on its property search app, to make sure the buying and selling process is as transparent and easy-to-navigate as possible.

Nine out of 10 recent buyers surveyed for the latest study admit to at least one extreme behaviour, while over 93 per cent said they’d heard of people doing similar left-of-field things when it came to auctions or private treaty.

These included dropping around to the property outside the permitted inspection times (40 per cent), grilling the neighbours for information (29 per cent) and checking out the sellers on social media for hints on how they could be won over (19 per cent).

An astonishing 13 per cent also confessed they’d written little notes to vendors talking about how much they loved their home, what it would mean to their family to live there and what incredible care they’d take of if were they to be able to buy.

Meanwhile, a sneaky 9 per cent pleaded guilty to saying something negative to fellow would-be buyers to put them off at open for inspections.

One person even talked about the time they hired a helicopter in order to make it to an auction in time, so nervous were they of missing their chance.

“Searching for a property can cause a lot of anxiety and there are times when we have gone above and beyond just to feel confident we are making the right decision,” Darley said.

“This research illuminates that Aussies are not alone in this feeling or the lengths that people will go to for information and comfort through the property journey. It reinforces the value the new Domain App search features ‘Recently Sold Prices’ and ‘Search by School Zone’ will bring to Aussies who rightly seek greater information and transparency in their property journey.”

The app contains a huge amount of additional information to help buyers, including suburb metrics, median house prices and their rises and falls, and more comprehensive search functions that enable users to compare neighbouring suburbs to their chosen one. 

They’re aimed at helping people through every stage of their lifecycle, whether renting, buying, selling, investing, financing or insuring.

Through those new features and enhanced technology, Domain chiefs hope potential property buyers will be even better informed about possibilities and choices, and will no longer have to resort to frenzied measures. 

Currently, Domain’s digital solutions reach an average of 6.24 million Australians each month.