Insights from Warwick Brookes, Co Founder and Principal of Domain & Co, on Property, Straight Up

Buying a home to live in is a different exercise from buying an investment. It is personal, exciting, stressful and, at times, overwhelming, because people are not simply acquiring an asset. They are choosing the place where they will raise a family, build routines and live a large part of their lives. That emotional weight is exactly what makes owner occupier purchases so easy to get wrong.

In this episode of Property, Straight Up, host Mel Dennis turned the tables and interviewed her business partner, co director and husband, Warwick Brookes. Warwick has spent decades in the Melbourne market, first in agency sales and then on the buyer’s side as co founder of Domain & Co, Melbourne’s original Buyer’s and Vendor’s Advocates. Their conversation covered what actually makes a good property purchase, the mistakes that cost buyers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and why the right advice early can change the outcome entirely.

From the Selling Side to the Buyer’s Side

Warwick began his career in sales at a small agency in Hawthorn. Over eighteen months he found himself in an uncomfortable position: being required to tell buyers that properties were great purchases when he knew they had real problems. It did not sit well with him, and it shaped everything that followed. He decided the best path was to give genuinely independent advice, working for the buyer rather than the seller.

That background matters. Having seen how campaigns are run from the inside, Warwick knows the presentation techniques, the pricing tactics and the negotiation scripts that agents use. Asked what he enjoys most about the work now, his answer is telling. It is not the wins at auction. It is helping clients say no to the homes they should not buy, often by pointing out problems they had not noticed at all.

The Fundamentals That Hold Value

So what actually makes a good purchase? Warwick returns again and again to a short list of core fundamentals, the things that consistently hold value regardless of where the market sits in its cycle:

• A north facing backyard and living areas make a home brighter, warmer and more liveable all year round.
• Floor plan. A plan that flows well and suits how people actually live will always have a wider pool of buyers.
• Natural light is difficult and expensive to add later, and buyers notice it immediately.
• The type of road. Warwick separates streets into four broad categories: quiet residential streets, cut throughs, secondary busy roads and major busy roads. The quiet residential street wins every time.
• Access to public transport, and in particular walking distance to a train station, has become a valuable commodity and will continue to be one.

Individually, each of these helps. Combined, they create a home that ticks so many boxes that there will always be people wanting it, in a rising market or a falling one.

Then there is land. Warwick points to the old property saying that land appreciates while buildings depreciate. A home with a higher proportion of its value in the land underneath it tends to grow more strongly over time, which puts owners in a far better position when it comes time to sell, upgrade or downsize.

Buy for the Life You Will Have, Not Just the One You Have Now

One of the most common traps is buying for today without thinking about tomorrow. Warwick gives the example of a younger buyer who gives up car parking to secure a home in an inner city location they love. A few years later a child arrives, and suddenly the home that felt perfect is barely workable.

Mel shared her own experience. When she and Warwick bought their first home, they were looking at single fronted houses and were advised not to buy one because they would outgrow it too quickly. They bought a double fronted home instead and have been grateful for that advice ever since. With prices where they are today, many buyers are stretching into single fronted homes, but one rule Domain & Co gives every client is simple: never buy a property without car parking.

Falling in Love With the Wrong Property

Is it possible to fall for the wrong home? Absolutely, according to Warwick. Many clients approach Domain & Co with a property they have already fallen for, asking for an assessment. Often the presentation is doing a lot of the work.

Styling is every agent’s favourite tool. Carpets are replaced, anything tired is painted over, and the rooms are filled with smaller, carefully chosen furniture that most people would never actually live with. The result looks perfect and sells a dream, while distracting buyers from issues that sit just beneath the surface.

A core part of the advocate’s role is separating the easy changes from the expensive ones. Paint, carpet and light fittings are cheap and simple to fix, so buyers should not get caught up on them. Structural problems, poor layouts and a bad position on the street are very different matters. Some can be fixed at significant cost, some cannot be fixed at all, and spending heavily on them does not always add the value people expect.

Auction Emotion and the Cost of a Bidding War

The biggest mistake Warwick sees owner occupiers make is letting emotion take over, and nowhere is that more dangerous than at auction. He has watched properties sell for $200,000 to $300,000 more than any comparable home in the area. Not because the property was worth it, but because two buyers were emotionally attached and fighting it out.

“You see one partner bidding and the other partner pulling on their arm saying, stop, what are you doing? They are just emotionally charged and it becomes a fight.”

Warwick Brookes, Domain & Co

Those outlier results can stretch a household far beyond its financial comfort zone, and they rarely reflect the true value of the home when it comes time to sell.

What a Building Inspection Finds That You Cannot

Warwick is still amazed by how many people buy without a building inspection. Across the inspections Domain & Co commissions, around 30 to 40 per cent of properties fail. Inspectors can get into roof spaces and subfloors that buyers simply cannot see from the ground, and they regularly uncover significant problems.

Some of the issues found in recent years include:

• Yellow mould, which is highly toxic and difficult to fix because it is usually present for a structural reason.
• Firewalls in the ceiling space that do not extend beyond the roof line as they should.
• A newly renovated bathroom with no hot water connected at all, both taps running cold. The buyer had skipped the inspection and only discovered the problem after moving in, facing a large repair bill.

Beyond structure, there are factors buyers rarely consider, such as whether a neighbour is likely to become a long term problem. These are the things experience trains you to look for, sometimes before even walking through the front door.

The Passed In Auction: Where Buyers Lose the Most

If emotional bidding is the first big auction mistake, Warwick says the second is mishandling a property that is passed in to you. This is the moment where buyers negotiating for themselves tend to lose the most money.

What many buyers do not realise is that the reserve the agent quotes once a property is passed in is usually not the real reserve. It is often an inflated figure, giving the agent room to negotiate you down to the number the vendor will actually accept. Knowing that, and knowing the scripts and dialogue agents use in those negotiations, makes an enormous difference.

“Understand that the agent is not your friend. They may come across as super friendly and act as if they are looking after your interests, but they are being paid by somebody else.”

Warwick Brookes, Domain & Co

Pricing is a related problem. Many buyers rely on agent quoting ranges, inspect, pay a solicitor to review the contract, commission a building inspection, and turn up to auction having spent around $800, only to be out of the bidding by the second bid. They keep missing out because their understanding of the market is not current. Victoria has strict rules on price advertising, and Consumer Affairs Victoria explains how property prices are set and how to report suspected underquoting, but an accurate independent read on value remains a buyer’s best protection.

The Truth About Off Market Sales

Off market has become a buzzword, with many buyers and advocates keen to say how many properties they bought this way. Warwick is blunt about what the term means today.

Ten years ago, a true off market sale was a phone call from an agent saying they had a property, had not shown it to anyone else, and would get you through first. Today, Domain & Co receives hundreds of so called off market listings every week by email, sent to every buyer’s advocate and every buyer on an agent’s database. Those are not off market sales. They are pre marketed properties, with hundreds of other people receiving exactly the same information.

Most of these properties are floated quietly at a price higher than the market would be expected to pay if they were advertised. They are also frequently used as a tool to condition a vendor with high expectations: the agent suggests testing the price off market first, and the lukewarm response helps reset the vendor’s thinking.

Genuine off market opportunities do still exist, and this is where long term relationships with agents count. Very few buyers receive the call that says you are the only person getting through, but those who do can often secure a quality home at a fair price.

Your Home Is Still an Investment

Even when buying a home to live in, Warwick believes resale and investment fundamentals are critically important. In Australia, your main residence is generally exempt from capital gains tax, as the Australian Taxation Office explains. That makes the family home one of the very few ways Australians can build wealth through capital growth without paying tax on the gain.

For that reason, anyone who says investment fundamentals do not matter when buying a home is missing the bigger picture. The right purchase sets you up for the future. The wrong one can hold you back for years.

Advice for First Home Buyers

First home buyers, in Warwick’s view, have the hardest job of any purchaser. If they get the first purchase wrong, moving up to the next home becomes very difficult. Under budget pressure, many are buying substandard properties that suit their current lifestyle rather than homes that will help them take the next step in their property journey.

With clear advice about how one choice compares to another, and what each will mean for their next purchase, Warwick believes many first home buyers would change direction. Mel added that where the bank of mum and dad is helping with a deposit, investing some of that support in independent advice can deliver far more value than the cost of buying the wrong property.

Why Use a Buyer’s Advocate, and When

Warwick describes a buyer’s advocate as a form of insurance. When you buy, you are negotiating against a professional whose entire career is built on negotiating property transactions. For a home with obvious issues, a private buyer may do well enough. But when the goal is a top quality home and the agent is at the top of their field, an unrepresented buyer will usually come off second best. Given the entry costs of stamp duty, legal fees and eventually selling costs, a wrong choice can set a household back significantly.

Domain & Co’s process follows a clear path:

• An initial conversation about what the client has been doing, what they want and their budget, including a reality check on whether their goals are achievable. This first conversation costs nothing.
• A detailed brief setting out the firm yeses and firm noes, followed by onboarding to an online portal where videos and information on every property are shared.
• Due diligence on properties that suit, assessing around 60 different data points to flag potential issues, then forming a view on value.
• A building inspection as the final check, left until last so clients do not spend money on properties they are unlikely to secure. Even homes that pass usually produce a useful list of maintenance items to plan for.
• Negotiation or bidding, whether at auction or through private sale, repeating the process until the right home is secured.

Most clients do not even attend the auction. Warwick estimates only about 20 per cent come along to watch, while the rest wait at a nearby cafe or at home, staying in contact online throughout the bidding.

As for timing, the answer is as early as possible, ideally before the search begins. Buyers can waste months heading down the wrong path. Many come to Domain & Co after missing out on several properties and growing frustrated, and while the team can take over at that point, earlier guidance saves both time and money.

Cutting Through the Noise

The final topic was one Warwick feels strongly about. More and more buyers are taking cues from Instagram and TikTok, where younger influencer style commentators share property advice that may be drawn from ChatGPT or simply made up to generate views. Very few of them have lived through multiple property cycles.

His advice is to step away from that noise and speak with people who have spent real time in the industry and have seen markets rise and fall. That experience is what gives you an accurate picture of the real situation.

Key Takeaways for Home Buyers

• Prioritise the fundamentals that never change: aspect, floor plan, light, a quiet residential street and walking access to transport.
• Favour a higher land content. Land appreciates while buildings depreciate.
• Buy for the life you will have in five or ten years, and never buy without car parking.
• Look past the styling. Separate cheap cosmetic changes from expensive structural ones.
• Always get a building inspection. Around 30 to 40 per cent of properties Domain & Co inspects fail.
• Set a firm limit before auction day and keep emotion out of the bidding.
• If a property is passed in to you, assume the quoted reserve has room in it.

Key Takeaways for First Home Buyers and Their Families

• Your first purchase shapes your second. Choose a home that helps you upgrade later, not just one that suits you now.
• Do not rely on agent quoting ranges. Get an independent view of value before spending money on inspections and contract reviews.
• Treat most off market offers as pre marketed listings, often priced above what the open market would pay.
• Remember that your main residence is generally free of capital gains tax, so buying well is a long term wealth decision.
• If the bank of mum and dad is helping, consider directing part of that support toward independent advice.
• Seek advice from people with experience across several property cycles, not from social media.

 

This article is based on the Property, Straight Up episode “What Buyers Miss: How to Buy a Home That Holds Its Value”, in which Mel Dennis interviews Warwick Brookes of Domain & Co.

Property, Straight Up is brought to you by Domain & Co, Your Property People.