Why That Amazing Sale Down the Road Could Cost You Money

When a property near you sells for a big number, it is natural to look at your own home and think “we should get that too.” It is also one of the easiest ways to cost yourself money. A great sale down the street is rarely just a number. It is the result of specific conditions, work and timing that may not apply to your property at all. Treating it as a benchmark instead of asking how it actually happened can push your expectations higher than your home can support, and that gap is where campaigns lose momentum.

Ask how, not just how much

We see this constantly. An owner mentions a sale on a nearby street and says, “that one got X, we should see ours at X.” The better question, and the one we wish more people asked first, is simply: how did that happen? What made that sale work?

Every strong result has ingredients behind it: the specific buyers who turned up, the condition of the home, how it was positioned, the timing, even the competition it was up against on the day. A figure without that context tells you almost nothing about what your own property will achieve. We would rather sit down with an owner who asks “how did they do that, and are we set up to do the same?” than one who simply demands the same number because a house two doors down got it.

Online estimates are a starting point, not a value

Owners also lean on automatic valuation tools from property websites, which send monthly notifications suggesting a home has gone up in value by a certain amount since purchase. Treat these carefully. If nothing has been done to the property, or the site hasn’t picked up renovations through new photos or listings, the number can be well off. These tools give a rough ballpark at best. What a property is actually worth is what a buyer is willing to pay for it, shaped by current market conditions and the real work of a campaign, not a desktop algorithm.

How quoting and reserves actually work

One thing that is often misunderstood: under real estate law, if an owner tells us they want $2 million, we have to put $2 million in the reserve, and we cannot quote a range below that figure. So if a property is realistically worth $1.8 million but the owner insists on a $2 million reserve, we are required to quote around $2 million to $2.2 million, not the figure the market will actually support.

That mismatch has a real cost. Weeks go by, the phone does not ring, and meanwhile the money and effort of holding the property at that price keeps going: the garden, the pool, the general upkeep. Then a new listing comes on the market close by, quoted well below where you are sitting, and buyer attention shifts there. At that point the only option is to come back down. This is exactly why the number you put forward at the start matters so much. It is not just a figure; it sets the ceiling on who even looks at the property.

Grounded expectations get better results than aspirational ones

None of this means you should undersell what you have built. We genuinely admire owners who have put years of their own work into a home: the garden they planted themselves, the outdoor area they built by hand. That effort has real value and deserves to be recognised in the sale process. The issue is not pride in your property. It is letting one headline figure from someone else’s sale distort what is realistic for yours.

The owners who get the best outcomes tend to be the ones who come in with grounded expectations and trust in the process, rather than a fixed number they are chasing regardless of conditions. When there is clarity between an owner and their agent from the start (about why they are selling, what the realistic range is, and what work needs to happen to get there), decisions get made faster and the result tends to be stronger, not weaker.

Pricing strategy is also not one size fits all. A property with no real comparables nearby, or one up against several similar homes at once, needs a different approach to one that stands alone in its market. There is a buyer for every home, but the right number and the right strategy for getting there depends on the specific property, not the best sale anyone happened to see on a drive around the block.

The takeaway

A standout sale nearby reflects specific conditions (buyers, timing, presentation), not a guaranteed benchmark for your home.
Ask how a comparable sale happened before you ask for the same number.
Online valuation estimates are a rough guide only, not a reliable figure to price against.
Under the law, once a reserve is set, an agent cannot quote below it, so an unrealistic reserve locks in an unrealistic quote range.
Pricing too high can mean weeks without inquiry, followed by a forced price drop once better positioned listings come onto the market.
Grounded expectations, built on trust between you and your agent, tend to produce stronger outcomes than chasing an aspirational figure.

This article draws on a conversation between Juan and Josh Merchan on the Selling Frankston podcast. Juan has been selling property in Frankston and Frankston South for more than 25 years.