Questions buyers and sellers ask us.

There's no universal right time — it depends on your property, your circumstances, and what the data shows for your specific suburb. What I can tell you is that the Lower North Shore market is highly seasonal: spring and autumn campaigns typically outperform summer and mid-winter listings because buyer competition peaks in those windows.

The more useful question is whether your property is ready. Prep quality, price accuracy, and campaign execution matter more than the calendar. If you're unsure, book an appraisal and we'll look at the recent data for your suburb together — no obligation to list from there.

Most appraisals start with three comparable sales and an agent's opinion. PSM — price per square metre — starts with every comparable sale in your suburb, separates land value and build value at per-square-metre rates, strips statistical outliers, and applies adjustments for aspect, renovation status, zoning, parking, and floor plan configuration.

The number that comes out the other end is the one I'll back for the life of the campaign. It's not a figure designed to win the listing. The workings come with it — you can see every comparable used, every adjustment made, and challenge any of it across the table.

The practical difference: you don't get conditioned down six weeks into the campaign, because the number was honest on day one.

On the Lower North Shore, presentation investment almost always returns more than it costs. The three highest-return items are decluttering and depersonalising, professional styling, and cosmetic works — fresh paint, garden edges, anything that reads "well maintained" to a buyer who's walking through in forty-five minutes.

How much to spend depends on your property and your price point. On a recent Dorset Road campaign we recommended roughly $100,000 in cosmetic works and styling on a property that had previously failed to sell under two other agents. It sold pre-auction. We'll give you a specific prep recommendation as part of the appraisal meeting — and we'll tell you honestly if something isn't worth doing.

88% of Team Howe sales go to auction. That's not a house rule — it reflects where the Lower North Shore buyer pool is and how competition works at this price bracket. Auction is the mechanism that surfaces the true market price when multiple buyers are interested; it protects the vendor from underselling to the first offer that arrives.

Private treaty, EOI, or expression of interest makes sense when buyer demand is more limited, the property has a narrow appeal, or when a specific buyer has already emerged before the campaign launches. We'll recommend the method that fits your property's profile — and explain the reasoning, not just the preference.

Three reasons, almost every time: the price guide is above where buyers are prepared to go, the presentation hasn't matched the campaign expectation, or the wrong sales method was chosen for the buyer pool.

The most common is the first. An appraisal that wins the listing isn't the appraisal that sells the house. When a vendor is told what they want to hear rather than what the data shows, the campaign launches above market, buyers pass in silence, days on market accumulate, and the agent eventually asks for a price reduction. The property is now stigmatised and the vendor feels misled. PSM methodology exists to prevent exactly that sequence.

We've picked up and sold two properties on the same street in Northbridge that had each previously failed under other agents. In both cases, the problem was methodology — not the market, and not the properties.

Our fees are discussed in the appraisal meeting, where we can talk through the fee structure alongside the campaign strategy and the numbers. It wouldn't be right to quote a rate in isolation — the commission is one part of what you're evaluating, and it needs to sit alongside the campaign approach, the methodology, and what you're actually likely to net at sale.

What I can say: we don't discount our fees to win listings, and we don't inflate appraisals to compensate. If you're comparing agents on fee alone, you're probably not comparing the right thing.

Across our recent sales record, the eventual sale price has landed within 5% of the midpoint of our PSM-led appraisal range. That's not a marketing claim — it's a figure we track because the model's accuracy is what makes it useful. An appraisal that's right 60% of the time protects no one.

If you want to see the workings — the comparable sales used, the adjustments applied, the resulting range — that's exactly what we put on the table at the appraisal meeting. Every number is shown, not summarised.

Register on the Team Howe buyer database. We maintain a live list of active buyers — by suburb, price range, property type, and specific requirements — and we match new listings against it before the campaign launches publicly.

On a recent Minimbah Road sale in Northbridge, the eventual buyer was on our database, viewed the home at the first Saturday open, returned that afternoon, and exchanged contracts on Monday. Three days from first open to sale — because the match existed before the listing went live. If you're looking in any of the twenty suburbs we cover, get on the database early. Contact us to register.

On the day, you register as a bidder before the auction starts — you'll need photo ID and, in most cases, a bank cheque or evidence of deposit funds. The auctioneer opens proceedings, invites bids, and the property is offered to the highest bidder once the reserve price is reached. If the reserve is met, the highest bidder is legally bound to exchange contracts on the day.

If bidding doesn't reach the reserve, the auctioneer will pass the property in — usually to the highest bidder, who then enters private negotiation with the vendor before anyone else. Passing in is not the same as failing to sell; a large proportion of passed-in properties exchange in the days immediately after auction.

If you're new to auction or want to know what to expect at a specific campaign, call us before the day — we'd rather you understand the process than be surprised at the moment it counts.

It depends on who set it. A PSM-led price guide is the range we'll back for the life of the campaign — it reflects the data, not a number designed to attract foot traffic. On Team Howe listings, the guide is the honest range. We don't set a low guide to generate competition and then condition the vendor up; we set the range we can defend with the workings.

Guides from other agents vary. As a buyer, the most reliable cross-check is to look at recent comparable sales in the suburb yourself — The Snapshot publishes this data weekly, across twenty suburbs. If a guide looks significantly below recent comparable sales, read that as a signal, not a discount.

Team Howe sells across the Lower North Shore with a particular depth of track record in Northbridge, Castlecrag, and Willoughby. We track twenty suburbs daily for The Snapshot:

Artarmon · Cammeray · Castle Cove · Castlecrag · Chatswood · Cremorne · Crows Nest · Hunters Hill · Kirribilli · Lavender Bay · McMahons Point · Middle Cove · Mosman · Naremburn · Neutral Bay · North Sydney · Northbridge · Waverton · Willoughby · Wollstonecraft

If you're looking in any of these suburbs, get in touch or subscribe to The Snapshot for weekly market data on all twenty.

Yes. Many of our vendor relationships extend into the next purchase — we've assisted clients at auction in Roseville, helped vendors identify their next property during the campaign, and managed the sequencing of sale and purchase to reduce the gap between the two.

We don't charge a buyer's fee. The value we offer buyers is market knowledge and access — twenty suburbs tracked daily, a buyer database matched to live listings, and an honest read of where comparable properties have been landing. Get in touch to discuss what you're looking for.

The Snapshot is a weekly read of the Lower North Shore property market — published each Sunday, free, no paywall. It covers days on market, auction clearance rates, listings by price range, and sales method breakdown across twenty suburbs, tracked daily.

1,300+ homeowners read it. The content is the same data Team Howe uses to inform appraisals — there's no simplified consumer version and no selling. If you're planning to buy or sell in the next six to twelve months, reading it now means you'll understand the market before you need to make decisions under pressure. Subscribe here.