Agents need to be careful

By Justin Eslick

Its Thursday afternoon, which means agent's emails of open homes for the weekend are hitting my inbox thick and fast. One particular one got my attention.

"All the properties below are 5.5%+ net return" it states. This is a pretty reasonable return for inner-city Brisbane. My hope is they are houses and not in large apartment complex. I click on the link and I'm doubly disappointed and confused.

Not only are all three apartment, but two of them are going to auction. I'm confused? How can you quote a net return when you don't know the price yet?

Another example of this in play is one I saw a few weeks ago. "Cheapest House in the Suburb... Auction". Again, huh? How do we know it is the cheapest.

Third example from a few months ago. Same headline... "Cheapest house in the suburb". I sorted houses by price on www.realestate.com.au and discovered 4 houses cheaper.

What's going on here? Agents need to be careful when they make statements like these.