Three homes, three states, no commission

Most agencies publish results as a wall of sold stickers with no numbers attached. This is the opposite. Every figure below comes out of the systems that ran the campaigns: the AI valuation the owner requested before listing, the portal enquiry emails, the call-routing log, and the signed contract.

The three campaigns

Each campaign has its own page with the full detail: Harlaxton, Elwood and Stirling North.

Harlaxton: two offers, full price, 14 days

A three bedroom house on 653sqm in Harlaxton, on the northern edge of Toowoomba, with half the shed converted into a self contained flat.

The owner ran a free AI valuation on 29 May. The automated comparable model returned a range of $540,000 to $720,000, which is wide enough to be useless on its own. The Unreserved layer on top of it narrowed that to $615,000 to $715,000 with a midpoint of $665,000, and flagged the shed conversion as the reason: dual living at that price point is rare, and buyers pay for it.

The listing went live on 2 June at $670,000. In its first seven days it drew 365 views on realestate.com.au. By the third week the campaign had put 26,502 impressions across the two major portals in front of buyers.

Two offers, no negotiation down, no price adjustment, no extension of the campaign.

Elwood: three bidders, sold at reserve

A renovated three bedroom period home on 253sqm in Elwood, a short walk from Ormond Road and the beach. This one ran as a full service auction campaign rather than a private sale.

The owners requested an AI valuation on 23 June. The automated model spread itself across $1,380,000 to $1,820,000. Unreserved refined that to $1,545,000 to $1,815,000, noting roughly $80,000 of recent work on the house. A second valuation run on 7 August, once the campaign was in market and fresh comparable sales had landed, tightened the range again to $1,500,000 to $1,700,000 and raised the confidence rating from medium to high.

The property was quoted at $1,450,000 to $1,550,000 and taken to auction on Saturday 15 August with three registered bidders. It sold under the hammer at $1,550,000, on reserve, at the top of the quoted range and inside both AI ranges.

Stirling North: an offer in three days

A four bedroom brick home on 922sqm at the foot of the Southern Flinders Ranges, with the serious shedding regional buyers ask for.

The owner ran an AI valuation on 8 July. The automated model returned $460,000 to $620,000. Unreserved refined it to $515,000 to $595,000 with a midpoint of $555,000, high confidence, weighting the land size and the new fencing.

She listed at $555,000. That is the AI midpoint to the dollar.

The listing drew 513 views on realestate.com.au in its first full week. Six enquiries landed in the first seven days, and the AI receptionist connected eight buyer calls directly to her phone, three of them on a single day. A buyer’s agent submitted a written offer three days after the campaign opened.

How close the AI valuation got

The valuation is the part of this that is hardest to fake, because the number is generated before the campaign and the contract price arrives weeks later.

Stirling North listed at the AI midpoint to the dollar and had a written offer three days later, which is its own kind of evidence, but the sale price is the owner’s to publish and she has chosen not to.

Three properties is a sample, not a study. But the gap between the raw automated range and the refined one is the point. On the Harlaxton house the automated model offered a $180,000 spread. An owner pricing off the bottom of it would have listed $130,000 light.

Where the buyers actually came from

Across the three campaigns, buyers made contact 31 times.

The phone number matters more than most sellers expect. Stirling North took nearly as many calls as it did emails, and a private seller without a receptionist would have missed most of them, because those calls arrived on weekdays during work hours.

Every one of those calls was answered by the AI receptionist, matched to the property, and put through to the owner’s mobile in real time. Nobody hit a voicemail.

What all this cost

Two of these campaigns cost $900. The Elwood auction, which included the full service campaign and the auction itself, cost $6,900.

Same portals. Same photography. Same contracts. Same buyers. The difference is that $43,050 stayed with the Harlaxton and Elwood owners instead of leaving at settlement, and the Stirling North owner paid $900 against a commission that would have been more than ten times it.

Sale prices are as recorded on the contract of sale, and are published only where the owner has agreed to display them. Days on market are counted to the day the sale was agreed, not to the day contracts were signed. Campaign metrics are drawn from realestate.com.au and Domain enquiry records and the Unreserved call routing log for each listing. Commission comparisons use typical state selling rates and are illustrative, not a quote from any named agency.