Most people sell a home a handful of times in their life. The agent across the table might do it a hundred times a year. That gap in experience is where money gets left behind — not through anything dramatic, just through small decisions made without knowing how the game actually works.
So here's the whole thing, written down. How a WA sale runs from appraisal to settlement, how pricing really works, how to choose an agent (including what to ask me), how to read an offer beyond the number on the front page, and what the law expects of you along the way.
This isn't legal advice and it isn't a sales pitch. It's the guide I wish every seller had before they signed anything.
Ben Wood · Licensed Sales Consultant · South West WA · benwoodrealestate.com
Every state runs property sales differently. Here's the WA version, start to finish, so nothing in the process surprises you.
1. Appraisal. An agent walks through your home and gives you a written opinion of likely selling price, backed by comparable sales. It's free, and it doesn't commit you to anything — not even to selling.
2. Agency agreement. When you choose an agent, you sign a selling agency agreement. It sets the commission, the marketing budget, the listing price range and how long the agreement runs. Read it before you sign — everything in it is negotiable.
3. Preparation. Repairs, decluttering, gardens, professional photography. The market meets your home once. Chapter 5 covers what's worth spending on and what isn't.
4. On market. Your listing goes live on the portals, buyers come through home opens and private inspections, and your agent works their buyer database. The first two weeks matter more than any fortnight after — that's when every active buyer in your price bracket sees the home.
5. Offers arrive in writing. WA offers come on the Offer and Acceptance contract — the O&A — attached to the Joint Form of General Conditions. Price, deposit, settlement date and the buyer's conditions all in writing. You accept, reject or counter.
6. No cooling-off period. Once both parties sign, the contract binds both sides. The buyer can't simply walk away, and you can't take a better offer the next day. Conditions like finance approval are the only exits, so understand every condition before you accept.
7. Conditions get satisfied. The buyer's bank approves the loan, inspections happen, and the contract goes unconditional. From here the sale is locked in.
8. Settlement. Your settlement agent (conveyancer) handles the legal transfer, discharges your mortgage, adjusts rates and lodges everything with Landgate. Typically 30 to 60 days after acceptance, the money lands and the keys change hands.
Start conversations with a settlement agent when you list, not when you accept an offer. It costs nothing to line them up early, and it removes the one piece of admin that most often causes last-minute settlement delays.
Nothing you decide in the whole campaign matters more than the price you go to market with. And the biggest pricing mistake in real estate isn't going too low.
Sold prices are the market. Asking prices are hope. Your home is worth what a buyer will pay for it in the next 30 to 60 days, and the best evidence of that is what comparable homes near you actually sold for — not what's currently listed, and not what you need for the next move.
Overpricing costs real money. An overpriced home sits. Buyers watch days-on-market the way you'd watch a fruit shop — if it's been on the shelf a while, they assume something's wrong and offer less. The price reductions that follow are public, and the eventual sale price is very often below what an accurate price would have achieved in week two. The freshest, most valuable moment your listing will ever have is its first fortnight. Overpricing spends it on the wrong number.
Underpricing is rarer than people fear. A sharp price doesn't mean giving the home away — it means creating competition. Multiple interested buyers push a price up far more reliably than one hesitant buyer negotiating down from a big ask.
Be suspicious of the agent who quotes the highest appraisal. Some agents win listings by telling owners the number they want to hear, then condition the price down over the campaign. Ask every agent the same question: show me the sold comparables behind your number.
Commission is negotiable in WA, agreements are contracts, and the cheapest agent is not automatically the best deal. Here's how to choose with your eyes open.
Most WA listings are exclusive agency agreements: one agent, a set period, an agreed commission and marketing budget. Check the duration before signing — a shorter initial term keeps the agent accountable. Everything in the agreement is negotiable before you sign, and almost nothing is after.
There is no set commission rate in WA. Rates vary between agents and are typically a percentage of the sale price, payable at settlement. A discount agent who saves you a few thousand in commission but sells your home for tens of thousands less is the most expensive agent you can hire. Judge the whole package: results, strategy, negotiation record.
You're hiring a negotiator you'll speak to weekly for months. You want honest reporting — including the feedback you won't enjoy hearing — and someone local buyers already know and trust. Check their recent sold results in your suburb, not just their listings.
Questions that sort good agents from bad: What did the last three homes you sold near mine go for, and how long did they take? What's your pricing strategy for my home, and what evidence is it built on? How will you report to me, and how often? Who actually attends my home opens — you, or someone I haven't met? And the big one: walk me through the last negotiation where you got a buyer to come up.
Ask these questions of every agent you interview, including me. An agent who's uncomfortable being interviewed for the job is telling you something about how they'll negotiate for you.
WA sells most homes by private treaty, but it's not the only route. The right method depends on the property, the market and how comparable your home is to what's around it.
The standard WA sale: list at an asking price (or price range) and negotiate with buyers as offers arrive. It suits most homes, most of the time. Its strength is flexibility — you can negotiate terms as well as price. Its weakness is that the asking price caps buyer thinking: almost nobody offers above it unless competition forces them to.
The home is marketed without a fixed price, with all offers due by a deadline. Works well for hard-to-price or unique properties — character homes, development sites, acreage — because it lets the market set the value and puts buyers in genuine competition. It needs honest buyer feedback loops and an agent who manages the process tightly.
Less common in WA than the eastern states, but it exists. Unconditional sale on the fall of the hammer, no finance clauses, deposit on the day. Suits high-demand, one-of-a-kind properties in strong markets. The trade-off: auction excludes every buyer who needs a finance condition, and in a quieter market a public pass-in can hurt the campaign.
Method of sale is a strategy decision, not a default. If an agent recommends a method without explaining why it suits your specific property and this specific market, ask them to.
Buyers decide emotionally in the first ninety seconds and justify it rationally afterwards. Presentation is about removing every reason to hesitate — not renovating.
The front of your home is the photo buyers see first online and the first thing they judge at the kerb. Mow, mulch, trim, pressure-wash the driveway, and make the front door look cared for. Highest return-per-dollar of anything on this list.
Half-empty cupboards read as generous storage. Full ones read as not enough. Clear benchtops, thin out furniture so rooms breathe, and box up the personal photos — buyers need to picture their own life in the rooms, not yours.
Dripping taps, cracked tiles, sticky doors, blown globes, flaking paint. Individually trivial, together they whisper "unloved" — and buyers price for the maintenance they can see, then double it for what they can't.
Windows, grout, ovens, ceiling fans, cobwebs. A professional deep clean before photography is some of the best money you'll spend on the whole campaign.
Major renovations rarely return their cost at sale time. A tired kitchen priced accordingly often nets you more than a rushed $30,000 makeover buyers would have done differently. Paint and floor coverings are usually the exception — talk it through before spending big.
Walk in through your own front door like a stranger — or better, ask a blunt friend to. You stopped seeing your home's flaws years ago. Buyers see nothing else.
The goal of marketing isn't clicks. It's making sure every buyer who could pay your price knows the home exists — because the second-best buyer sets the underbidder pressure that gets the best buyer to their limit.
Buyers shortlist from photos. Professional photography, shot after presentation is done, decides whether your home makes the shortlist at all. Dark phone photos on a million-dollar asset is a false economy you can't undo.
reiwa.com and realestate.com.au are where WA buyers actually search. Listing quality matters more than listing quantity: a strong headline, honest copy that leads with what buyers in your suburb actually want, and a floor plan — buyers linger on floor plans longer than photos.
A working agent has a list of active, qualified buyers before your home ever hits the internet. Some of the best sales happen to buyers who registered for a home like yours weeks earlier. Ask any agent you interview how many matching buyers they have right now.
Home opens create urgency and let buyers feel competition in the room. Private inspections catch the serious out-of-towners and FIFO schedules. You want both, and you want feedback from every single one — in writing, weekly.
Insist on a weekly written report: inspections, enquiries, feedback and where each buyer stands. Marketing you can't measure is marketing you're paying for on faith.
The number on the front page is only half the offer. The conditions attached to it decide how likely that number is to ever reach your bank account.
A $10,000 higher offer loaded with conditions can be worth less than a clean offer below it. Every condition is a door the buyer can exit through. Weigh the finance clause, the deposit size, the settlement date and the buyer's position — cash, pre-approved, or subject to selling their own home — before you compare numbers.
An offer that depends on the buyer selling their home first usually comes with a 48-hour clause: your home stays on the market, and if another acceptable offer arrives, the first buyer has 48 hours to go unconditional or step aside. Legitimate, workable — but it keeps your campaign alive, not concluded.
When more than one offer lands, a good agent runs the process cleanly: every buyer is told a multiple-offer situation exists and invited to put their best foot forward, usually in writing by a deadline. Done properly it's the strongest negotiating position a seller ever holds. Done sloppily it can scare off the best buyer.
You don't have to accept or reject — you can counter on price, settlement, deposit or conditions. Small trades matter: a buyer might hold their price but drop a condition, or meet your price for a longer settlement. Everything on the O&A is negotiable until both parties have signed.
Never let an offer expire while you wait for a hypothetical better one. Respond to every written offer — accept, counter or decline — while the buyer is still emotionally in the room. Momentum sells homes; silence kills deals.
Acceptance isn't the finish line — it's the start of the quiet phase where good preparation stops small problems becoming settlement delays.
The buyer's conditions run first. Finance approval usually takes up to about 21 days, and the buyer's building and timber pest inspections happen in this window too. If an inspection turns up a genuine structural issue, expect a conversation — sometimes a repair, sometimes a price adjustment, occasionally a termination under the condition. Your agent's job is to keep that conversation proportionate.
Your legal compliance obligations. Before transfer of title, a WA seller must have at least two RCDs protecting the home's circuits and mains-powered smoke alarms less than 10 years old in the required locations. If you've done owner-builder work within the last several years, home indemnity insurance rules may apply, and strata sales carry their own compulsory disclosure documents. Your settlement agent will walk you through exactly what applies — the point is to start early.
The final inspection. The buyer is entitled to inspect in the week before settlement to confirm the home is in the same condition as when they signed, with everything included in the contract still there. Leave the place clean, leave the fixtures alone, and hand over every key, remote and manual you have.
Settlement day. Your settlement agent and the buyer's exchange funds and lodge the transfer with Landgate. Your mortgage is discharged, rates and taxes are adjusted to the day, the agent's commission is paid from the proceeds, and the balance lands in your account. The buyer usually collects keys from the agent that afternoon.
Book the electrician for RCDs and smoke alarms the week you list, not the week you settle. It's a few hundred dollars and one visit — and it's the single most common cause of avoidable last-minute settlement stress in WA.
No surprises: here's where the money goes when you sell, and the questions sellers ask me most.
Commission is negotiable, agreed up front in the agency agreement, and paid at settlement from the proceeds — you don't pay it out of pocket. Marketing (photography, portal listings, signboard) is usually a separate agreed budget.
Your settlement agent's fee, plus your bank's mortgage discharge fee and Landgate lodgement costs if you have a loan to clear. Rates, water and strata levies are adjusted to settlement day — you pay your share, the buyer pays theirs.
RCDs and smoke alarms if yours aren't compliant, any repairs you choose to do, and cleaning. Typically the smallest bucket, and the one with the highest return.
Your main residence is generally exempt from capital gains tax; investment properties are not. Everyone's situation is different — get advice from your accountant before you sell, not at tax time after.
A written appraisal takes me about half an hour at your place. You'll get the comparable sales evidence, a realistic price range, and my honest read on whether now is the right time to sell — even if the honest answer is "wait".
Free, no obligation, and no follow-up campaign of phone calls if you decide to sit tight.