3 days ago
21
July 7, 2026 — 3:30pm
With the housing market becoming more unpredictable as house values fall and auction clearance rates tank, buying and selling feels like more of a gamble than ever – and punters like me become all too aware that they are at the mercy of a godless industry.
As I write this, I am fashioning a Groucho Marx moustache to wear to my local shops in case I bump into the real estate agent I recently fell out with. Business is business, you’d think. But if you let someone into your home, give them your keys, trust them to set boundaries for the strangers opening and closing your toilet lid and peeking into your clothes drawers, you feel rather vulnerable when things turn sour.
And, in the current market, things can easily turn sour. I found this out when I decided to question my ex-agent’s confident assertions about how the market is so terminal that I will never get an offer better than the one I have just gotten, and how it is in my best interests to trust them completely because they know what is about to happen.
If there’s one thing we can be certain of, it’s that absolutely no one knows what is about to happen. That includes my ex-agent, whose basis for predictive capacities, in the absence of any advertising campaign, was the lone man they found on their database who they took through my property so many times I expected to find him in the kitchen one morning frying an egg.
By definition, a market is a collective experience. The amount it will pay for a house is a mirage built upon the circular idea of imaginary people’s bank balances and desires. And like French Skipping or the act of infidelity, it requires the stamina and desire of at least two people. One lone man blowing through my house like tumbleweed it ain’t.
My agent repeatedly insisted I would never get a better offer. The pressure to accept it was seismic. “We’ll give you a token of our commission if you take it,” they said. “You will be stuck in your house for another 10 years if you don’t take it,” they said. “We have your best interests at heart,” they said. (Agents love to position themselves as not only in the business of future-prediction but also in the business of pastoral care.)
I second-guessed myself many times during this attempted sale period – after all, they are the experts, right? The problem is, in the real estate world, the person who is the expert is also the person who is positioned to make a span of money from your sale that differs so minimally whether you take the lowball or the decent offer that there is little impetus to trust what they call “the best offer”. Especially in my case, where the agent insisted that a mere sign propped outside my house and a group text message to a bunch of people who were once house hunting would provide a litmus test for the best offer I could get.
I must pause here and fend off several ambushes. Even mentioning real estate right now I feel the ire of investment-owning Boomers, wanna-be home-owning Zoomers, and – real estate agents. If prices do fall catastrophically, it’ll be welcomed by Zoomers (and investors looking to collect whole suites of streets, Monopoly-style). If prices do not drop off a cliff, it will placate some of the investor-Boomer terror and perhaps see agents less wedded to a quick sale.
I defer to my earlier statement: absolutely no one knows what is about to happen; least of all me. As for real estate agents, I get it – oh the times they are a crazy, and any sale right now is a golden goose. The ideal agent in these times (and shout out to Lexi and Mark and Keith) is able to concede that they, too, are facing uncertainty, that the business of property is as much sleight of hand as truth, and that the weight of the loss or gain I might make is somewhat greater than theirs – certainly emotionally.
I ventured aboard the current real-estate rollercoaster in fairly safe circumstances, and the stress was still significant. I am not at risk of homelessness, my mortgage is manageable, and I do not have to sell. I hoped to buy quickly again in the same market – something a little bigger for me and my crew so I don’t have to ask the dog to leave the lounge when I have a Zoom meeting. The risk was in taking an offer that was below even where the market might be at, putting that extra room out of my reach after all, and finding myself without my little house to boot.
There are people out there with much more than just emotional stakes in these uncertain times. People who have to sell because they can’t afford repayments now, or who fear they’ll find themselves in negative equity. People who need to sell to relocate for work or family and are finding themselves stuck and unable to do so. A lot is on the line for many.
Me? I called off the sale. I am now having to check my email with a Groucho Marx moustache on too, for I am receiving slightly threatening reminders that I am bound to the agents for another two months and may not take my property to another agency. This is no threat to me: I am so exhausted and nerve-shot that I need some time in a Swiss sanatorium.
It’s OK. I like my house quite a bit. I am lucky to own a house. And since I tidied it up for the tumbleweed to blow through, the sense I had of its smallness has evaporated. If it means I never have to negotiate the real estate landscape again, I will stay in it forever more, even if it falls down around me.
Nicola Redhouse is a Melbourne writer and author of Unlike the Heart: A Memoir of Brain and Mind.
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