Follow the Money: Who's Really Paying for Your Property Advice?

A buyers advocate cost me $300,000. Then I became one. Here's the map I wish someone had handed me.

A buyers advocate cost me three hundred thousand dollars. And then I became one.

I want to start there, because that number is the whole reason this article exists. In 2021 I bought my first investment property. I'd put it off for years, I had a story in my head that you couldn't invest and travel, so I picked travel and told myself property could wait. When I was finally ready, I didn't wing it. I did the responsible thing. I hired a professional to advise me.

He told me to buy land and build new in an up-and-coming area. Sounded smart. Sounded safe. It ended up costing me about $300,000 more than he'd estimated and more than I'd have paid for a bigger, established property in a better suburb at the same time. I got lucky: I sold the land for a profit. A lot of people in my shoes don't get lucky.

For a long time afterwards I felt genuinely stupid. Until I worked out the one question I never asked him the question that would have saved me the whole thing. It's what this entire article is about.

The question I never asked

When I finally understood how my advisor got paid, his advice made total sense. It just had nothing to do with what was best for me.

Here's what I didn't know at the time. Many of the “advisors” who steer you toward brand-new house-and-land packages aren't paid by you. They're paid by the developer a marketing commission, often thirty to fifty thousand dollars per sale, built right into the price of the property. A price I paid.

The advice was free to me. But I was never the customer. I was the product.

Once you understand that, the tell becomes obvious in hindsight: no matter what I asked, the answer was always a new build. Different question, same answer. That's not advice. That's a sales script.

The question I never asked (the one that would've saved me $300,000) was just this: who pays you? Five words. I didn't ask them because it felt rude, and because he had a nice office and a nice title, and I assumed the title meant he was on my side. It didn't.

The map: five voices, and who pays each one

So here is the map I wish someone had handed me every major voice you'll hear in property, and who's actually paying them.

1. The selling agent

Paid by the seller. This is the most honest conflict of the lot, because everybody already knows it. The agent works for the vendor and their job is to get the highest price. Fine, that's the gig. The mistake is treating them like a neutral source. If you ask the selling agent whether it's a good buy, or what it's really worth, you're asking the one person in the room whose paycheck goes up when you pay more.

2. The developer's “free advisor”

This is my one. Paid by the developer, thirty to fifty grand a sale. They don't call themselves salespeople they're strategists, advisors, wealth consultants. The giveaway is that every answer is a new build. If whatever you ask, the solution is always the shiny thing they happen to sell, you're not getting advice. You're getting inventory.

3. The spruiker — the “free seminar”

Paid by whoever's stock they're shifting that month. You know the ones: the free wealth workshop, the retire-early masterclass, the webinar that's genuinely full of good information. And that's the trick. The education is real, and it's there to earn enough of your trust that you'll buy the thing waiting at the end. Watch the shape of it: great free content that funnels toward one specific opportunity, usually with a deadline. The generosity is the tactic.

4. The media

Paid by clicks and by real estate advertising. Headlines exist to be opened, not to be right. “Market's going to crash” and “The boom is back” sell equally well, sometimes in the same week.

My favourite example: in October 2019, the headlines had Perth dead in the water market in the doldrums, down more than twenty per cent from its peak. If you believed that and stayed out, by late 2025 Perth's median house price had passed a million dollars for the first time, more than double the 2019 number. The headline didn't predict the market. It was just describing the mood on the way down.

Headlines follow prices. They never lead them.

5. The buyers advocate — done properly

Paid by you. Only you. A buyers advocate who takes no developer commissions, no kickbacks and no referral fees has exactly one customer to keep happy: the person paying them. When my income only goes up if you buy well, for the first time in this whole list, my interests and yours actually point the same way.

But (and I really want you to hear this) “buyers agent” on the business card does not automatically make someone safe. Some quietly take developer commissions on the side, and the second they do, they've dropped straight back into category two. Don't take the title on faith. Which brings me to the fix.

The fix: five words, then watch their face

The fix is one question, the exact one I didn't ask in 2021. You ask any advisor, and yes, you should ask me this too: “How exactly do you get paid, and do you accept anything from anyone other than me?”

Then you watch the answer, not just listen to it. The honest ones answer in one clean sentence they've got nothing to hide, so it's easy. Everyone else gets a bit uncomfortable, or gives you a speech, or changes the subject.

The discomfort is the answer.

You don't need to be an expert. You just need to ask the question and watch their face. If I could go back and hand my 2021 self one thing, it wouldn't be a spreadsheet or a hot suburb tip. It would be that one question. It would have cost me nothing and saved me $300,000.

So how do I get paid?

Let me answer my own question, out loud, because almost nobody in this industry does — and that's exactly why I will.

I'm paid by my clients. A fee we agree before I start any work. I don't take commissions, kickbacks or referral fees from developers, from selling agents, from mortgage brokers, from anyone. If I ever point you to a broker or a conveyancer, it's because I'd use them myself and if any money ever changed hands, I'd tell you. That's the whole arrangement. There's no second page.

I'm not telling you this because I'm a better human being. I'm telling you because I was the person who got burned for not knowing to ask. I started Investor Haus so the people I work with the FIFO workers, the doctors, the engineers, the people with a good income and zero spare hours to become property experts don't have to pay the three-hundred-thousand-dollar tuition I did. Transparency is the one thing the advisor who cost me that money would never have offered me. So it's the first thing I'll always offer you.

Follow the money

The wrong property isn't just the one you buy. It's the one you buy without knowing who's really in the room with you.

Next time someone offers you free property advice (and they will) don't ask if they're nice, or qualified, or confident. Ask who pays them. Follow the money. It'll tell you everything their advice won't.

Prefer to listen? This article is also an episode of The Intrepid Investor find it on Spotify. And if you'd rather have someone whose incentives point the same way as yours run the whole process for you, that's what I do: book a free strategy call at investorhaus.com.au.

General information only not financial, legal or taxation advice, and prepared without considering your personal circumstances. Seek advice from licensed professionals before making investment decisions. © Investor Haus Pty Ltd