You’ve been to the open home. You liked the property, it seems to fit the brief, and you can picture yourself living there. You’ve probably stood out the front afterwards for a few minutes talking it over: the things you liked, the things you didn’t, whether the furniture would fit, whether it’s actually worth pursuing.
Then you get in the car, head to the next inspection, grab a coffee, go home and think about it. For you there’s a natural pause. For the selling agent, there usually isn’t.
By the time the last group has walked out, the agent already has a reasonable picture of how the property was received. They know who spent twenty minutes going through it and who was gone in three. They know who came back for a second look, who asked for a contract, who wanted to know about settlement terms, and who was asking very specific questions about what the seller actually wants.
Then the phone calls start.
This is Part 2 of my What Buyers Don’t See series. Part 1 looked at why the advertised price guide and the eventual sale price can be two very different numbers. This time I want to look at what happens in the gap between inspecting a property and actually putting in an offer, because there’s a fair bit going on in that window that buyers rarely see.
The conversation after the open home
A good selling agent isn’t just counting heads through the door. They’re trying to work out who might actually buy the property.
After the inspection they’ll generally follow up with anyone who seemed interested: what did you think, does it suit what you’re looking for, any concerns, and, eventually, are you considering an offer. They’re having a version of that same conversation with everyone else who showed genuine interest too.
All of it gets fed back to the seller. If several buyers love the house but think it’s worth $1.2 million when the seller wants $1.3 million, that’s useful information for the seller to have. If the same issue keeps coming up, whether it’s a small third bedroom, traffic noise, a dated kitchen, or the place just not presenting as well in person as it did online, that starts telling the seller something real about how the market is actually responding.
The reverse happens too. Contracts being requested, second inspections being booked, several people talking seriously about offers, and the seller’s confidence in their asking price tends to firm up.
As a buyer you don’t hear most of that directly. You get fragments of it through your own conversations with the agent, which is exactly why knowing what those fragments actually mean matters.
“There’s a lot of interest”
Spend enough time looking at property and you’ll hear some version of this at nearly every open home. We had a really strong open. There are a couple of interested parties. We’re expecting offers. We’ve had plenty of interest.
Sometimes that’s genuine competition. Sometimes it just means a few people liked the house. Those aren’t the same thing, and the agent telling you one doesn’t automatically mean the other is true.
I don’t think buyers should panic every time they hear there’s interest, but I also wouldn’t write it off as pure sales talk either. The selling agent works for the seller, and part of their job is generating interest and creating competition where it genuinely exists. There’s nothing underhanded about that, it’s literally what they’ve been engaged to do. My job on the buyer’s side is different: working out which bits of that information actually matter and what, if anything, they should change about our approach.
So I ask. Has an offer actually been submitted, or is it still just interest? Is there a real deadline, or a soft one? Are the other buyers actually in a position to proceed, finance sorted, nothing to sell first? Has anything shifted since the last time we spoke? I won’t get a straight answer to all of it, and I wouldn’t expect an agent to hand over information they shouldn’t. But a proper conversation usually tells me a lot more than “there’s lots of interest” does on its own, and it’s a far better basis for a decision than reflexively adding $20,000 because someone said that sentence to you.
Interest doesn’t necessarily mean competition
A busy open home doesn’t mean everyone there wants to buy. Three requests for a contract don’t mean three offers are coming. And even three actual offers aren’t necessarily three equally serious ones.
One buyer might still need to sell their own place first. Another could have finance that isn’t locked in yet. Someone might need a long settlement that doesn’t suit the seller at all, while another buyer could be ready to go immediately. Price matters, obviously, but it’s only one part of what makes an offer competitive.
That’s part of why I don’t run the same negotiation playbook on every property. If there’s genuinely no competition, the approach looks one way. If it looks like several credible buyers are chasing the same asset, it looks very different. Sometimes moving fast is the right call. Other times, waiting a day or two gives us information we didn’t have, though occasionally it just gives someone else enough time to buy the house instead. There’s no formula that holds up every time, it’s a judgement call based on the property, its value, your circumstances, and whatever’s genuinely happening around it.
The selling agent is assessing you too
While you’re trying to work out what the agent is doing, the agent is doing the same thing to you.
Are you genuinely interested or just browsing? Is your finance actually sorted? Do you understand how the process works? If you put in an offer, can you actually follow through on it, or will you need three days to think it over when a decision needs to happen quickly?
None of that means handing over your full circumstances or showing your hand before negotiations have even started. But being seen as a credible buyer is worth something.
This is also where a relationship with a selling agent can help, just not in the way some buyers imagine. Knowing an agent doesn’t mean they’ll sell my client a property for less, they represent the seller, and frankly I’d be concerned if they weren’t working hard for them. What a relationship actually buys you is credibility. If I tell an agent I have a serious buyer, they generally know I’m not calling to waste their time. If I ask a specific question, there’s usually a reason behind it. If I say I’ll call back at 3pm, I call back at 3pm. Those small things add up, and they help when you’re trying to work out what’s actually happening before deciding on next steps.
When an offer finally goes in
This is usually where the emotion ramps up.
You’ve done the research, worked through the risks, decided you want it, and submitted an offer. Then the phone rings: another buyer’s interested, or another offer’s landed. That’s the moment FOMO tends to take over, and the thinking quietly shifts from “what’s this worth” to “what will it take to beat the other person.” They add $10,000, you add $20,000. They move again, you move again. Somewhere in there the negotiation stops being about the property and starts being about winning.
There are genuinely times I’ll tell a client to increase an offer, if the asset’s good, the comparable evidence backs the price, and the gap between buying it and losing it is small, digging in purely to “win” the negotiation can be just as silly as overpaying. But another buyer wanting the property doesn’t change what it’s actually worth. Competition shapes the strategy. It was never the valuation.
There’s also something buyers tend to overlook here: sellers usually aren’t comparing two prices side by side, they’re comparing two whole offers. Deposit, finance conditions, building and pest terms, settlement timing, all of it can matter. A seller with a hard settlement deadline, or who simply values certainty over squeezing out the last few thousand dollars, might take the lower offer with better terms over the higher one with none. That doesn’t mean stripping sensible protections out of your contract just to look appealing. It means understanding what actually matters to the seller and, where you can, shaping an offer around it rather than just the number. I’ve written more on this approach in Negotiation Strategy in a Softer Brisbane Market.
So what should you actually do after an open home?
Before worrying about what everyone else is doing, go back to the property itself. Does it meet your brief? Does it actually work for how you want to live? Which compromises are you genuinely okay with, and which aren’t you? Does it have the fundamentals that’ll still matter when you come to sell it one day? Is it, in plain terms, a quality asset, and what does the comparable evidence actually say it’s worth?
Once you’ve worked through that, then it’s worth thinking about the other buyers, the seller, the timing, and how to approach the offer.
Buying a home is emotional, and I don’t think that’s a problem. You should be able to walk through a place and picture your furniture in it, imagine Christmas lunch on the deck, think about waking up to that view. I tell clients fairly often: you can be the heart, I’ll be the head. My job was never to take the emotion out of buying a home. It’s to make sure the emotion isn’t the thing making the commercial decisions.
There’s a lot happening between an open home and a sale that buyers never fully see. Agents are following people up, sellers are getting feedback, expectations are shifting, some buyers are dropping out while new ones show up, and sometimes real competition builds faster than anyone expects. You don’t need visibility into every one of those conversations. You just need enough understanding of the process to tell what actually matters from what doesn’t, and to make a clear-headed decision when it’s time to act.
Buying well was never about beating another buyer. It’s about securing the right property, at a price that makes sense, on terms you’re actually comfortable with.
Thinking about buying in Brisbane?
If you’re buying in Brisbane and want someone in your corner for the search, the property assessment, due diligence and negotiation, I’d be happy to have a chat.
At The Home Buyer Helper, my job isn’t just helping you buy a property. A big part of it is making sure you don’t buy the wrong one.
Buy Smarter, Not Just Cheaper.
About the Author
Ric Medlin is the founder of The Home Buyer Helper, an independent buyer’s agency based in Brisbane. With more than 20 years of experience buying property, Ric works with owner-occupiers, relocators and downsizers across Brisbane and South East Queensland.
His approach is built around the Four Pillars of Price, Position, Presentation and Practicality, with a focus on due diligence, risk, and selecting quality assets that work for the buyer today while retaining their appeal to future buyers.
The Home Buyer Helper | Buy Smarter, Not Just Cheaper.
