Not sure how successful this would be but guess they're big enough

Ray White’s secret plan to sell more homes off-market

One of Australia’s biggest real estate groups has been secretly experimenting with putting more properties up for sale off-market for almost a week, before listing them on the major property portals such as Domain and realestate.com.au.

Ray White, an agency group representing almost 15 per cent of properties sold in Australia and New Zealand, has been trialling a new tech product to list upcoming homes for sale on its own websites in several affluent Sydney suburbs for five days before they are listed on the portals.

The move demonstrates how agents are exploring ways to reduce their reliance on the property listings giants, which have a combined market capitalisation of $33 billion and have hiked prices to list by as much as 5000 per cent in the past 15 years. It cost $75 to put a home on realestate.com.au back in 2009 – it’s now as much as $6000, depending on the suburb.

Selling properties off-market can save vendors thousands of dollars, but comes with the risk of missing interested buyers who might have bid the price higher. Typically, vendors may choose to try to sell off-market to save money, allowing agents to send properties to their own database of potential buyers and buyer’s agents.

“It’s a long-standing agency practice to market directly to buyer databases with previews, new listing alerts or buyer matches ahead of portal campaigns,” Ray White managing director Dan White said.

Now, Ray White is developing its own tech to market properties. It spent $3 million to buy a 50 per cent interest in proptech platform NurtureCloud in 2020, which it uses to target an evolving list of potential buyers.

“We are developing a new platform to enable agents to alert buyers of new listings coming to market soon,” White said. Known as Uplist, it lets agents upload details and basic photos of new listings up to a week before they’re ready to go live. The group is trialling the product on Sydney’s upper north shore.

Ray White managing director Dan White. The group is trialling tech which makes it easier for agents to market new properties to their buyer lists before advertising them on the big property listings portals.  Peter Wallis

Ray White’s move risks pushing even more properties off the major platforms. Last month, private subscription platform Quiet List released an analysis of Sydney real estate sales in 2024, revealing that one in five sold off-market.

Competition between the property portals for listings is intense. REA’s realestate.com.au is by far the biggest platform, a dominance that has drawn regulator interest for its pricing practices.

REA now faces a powerful new competitor after US property conglomerate CoStar Group bought second-placed Domain for around $3 billion earlier this year. CoStar Group chief executive Andy Florance has pointed to new 3D internal mapping technology and faster website load times as ways to improve Domain’s audience in Australia.

But while the portals compete on price and introduce new products, agents themselves are increasingly trying not to be entirely reliant on platforms that can increase subscription fees by 110 per cent in a single year.

“Technology is such that it’s getting easier for agents to get traction outside of the portals than it used to be,” Real Estate Institute of Australia chief executive Leanne Pilkington said. “Advertising is so expensive, agents are always testing to see how they can save their clients money and still get a great result.”