Case study · St Kilda
She lost the apartment she wanted. We went after the building instead, and found two more that were never for sale.
| Suburb | St Kilda, VIC 3182 |
|---|---|
| Purchase price | $535,000 |
| Our assessment of value | At least $550,000 |
| Method | Off-market, negotiated directly with the owner |
| Selling agent involved | None |
| Buyer | Interstate, investing first and living in it later |
| How it was sourced | Letterbox drop to every apartment in the building, plus agent network |
| Off-market options produced | Two, both in the same building |
Before she came to us, our client had found an apartment in St Kilda she genuinely wanted, and missed out on it. That is the point at which most buyers start again from scratch, scrolling the portals and waiting for something comparable to appear.
Her brief also had a wrinkle. She was buying from interstate, as an investment to begin with, but she intended to move into it herself later. So it had to stack up on the numbers and be somewhere she would actually want to live. Plenty of stock satisfies one of those and fails the other.
The building already met the brief. She had proven that by falling for an apartment in it. So rather than restart the search, we went at that specific block from two directions at once.
Both worked. A local agent brought us an off-market apartment in the building. Separately, an owner who had been running his apartment as short-stay accommodation received our letterbox drop and rang us to say he would consider selling.
Two off-market opportunities, in the one building she wanted, neither of which existed on any portal.
The apartment she bought was never for sale until we asked.
We negotiated directly with the owner. There was no selling agent, which changes the arithmetic for a vendor.
Selling the ordinary way, he would have paid agent commission, a marketing campaign, styling, and the holding cost of an apartment sitting empty while it went to market. Selling directly to a known, ready buyer, he avoided all of it.
That is not a favour either side does the other. It is a genuinely smaller pie to divide, and both parties took some of the difference.
Secured at $535,000, against our assessment that the apartment was worth at least $550,000. An investment that services now, in a building she had already decided she wanted to live in later.
Missing out is not the end of that search, it is information. It tells you exactly which building, which floorplan, which street. That is a far more specific brief than most buyers ever manage to write down.
The mistake is going back to the portals and starting again. The opportunity is that the property you wanted has near-neighbours, and none of them are advertised.
Buyer advocacy by LP Advisory, Melbourne. Suburb-level detail only. Prices are indicative and shared with permission; some details withheld for privacy.
Treat it as a brief rather than a loss. It tells you the exact building, layout and location that suits you. In this St Kilda case, a letterbox drop to every apartment in the building the client had missed out in produced two off-market opportunities and a purchase at $535,000.
Yes. Letterbox campaigns and direct approaches to owners are a standard part of sourcing off-market property. The owner in this case was running the apartment as short-stay accommodation, received the letterbox drop, and made contact himself.
It can be. A vendor selling privately avoids agent commission, marketing, styling and the holding cost of a vacant property, so there is real money that would otherwise leave the transaction. Whether any of it reaches the buyer depends on the negotiation.
Yes, and the brief is harder than either one alone. The property has to service as a rental now and suit you as a home later. Get one right and fail the other and you have bought a problem.
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