Buying an investment property is one of the biggest financial decisions most Australians will ever make. By the time many investors decide to engage a buyers agent, they’ve often spent weeks, if not months, researching suburbs, comparing finance options and weighing up the risks. Professional guidance should represent the point where uncertainty begins to disappear.
Instead, according to Adrian Trimboli, Co-Founder and CEO of Fresh Start Advisory, it’s often where a different kind of uncertainty begins.
A final Google search intended to confirm they’ve chosen the right firm can quickly lead prospective buyers down an entirely different path. Reddit discussions questioning whether buyers agents are worth the fee, Facebook groups sharing stories of disappointing purchases, and Google reviews presenting vastly different experiences can leave investors trying to reconcile glowing testimonials with anonymous warnings from strangers they’ve never met.
Trimboli says that hesitation is entirely understandable. Buyers agent fees commonly range from $8,000 to more than $20,000, and the advice being provided can influence an investment worth hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars. With so much at stake, investors naturally want reassurance they’re making the right decision. The challenge, he argues, is that much of the information available online doesn’t actually answer the question buyers are most concerned about.
“The conversation has become focused on whether other people had a good experience,” he says. “Far less attention is given to what happens if you don’t.”
According to Trimboli, that distinction highlights a broader issue within the buyers agent industry. The problem isn’t that buyers agents, as a profession, are failing investors. Rather, it’s that accountability is rarely built into the client relationship from the outset. Until that changes, he believes hesitation will remain a rational response for anyone trying to distinguish genuine expertise from confident marketing.
Why Online Forums Have Become the New Due Diligence Process
Australia’s buyers agent industry is regulated through licensing requirements, but there is no industry-wide standard requiring firms to formally stand behind the outcomes of their recommendations. As a result, Trimboli says many investors find themselves making decisions based on reputation rather than accountability. When there is no consistent framework explaining what happens if an investment underperforms or fails to meet expectations, buyers naturally look elsewhere for reassurance.
Increasingly, that reassurance comes from other investors.
Online communities such as Reddit and Facebook have become the modern equivalent of asking friends for advice. They provide something many prospective clients feel they can’t find elsewhere: unfiltered accounts of real experiences. Some describe exceptional outcomes, while others recount purchases that failed to perform or relationships that deteriorated once the transaction was complete. Whether every story is accurate is almost beside the point. These platforms have become influential because they address the uncertainty buyers are already feeling.
Interestingly, even firms with substantial public credibility aren’t immune to this dynamic. Fresh Start Advisory has accumulated more than 330 verified Google reviews, making it one of Australia’s most extensively reviewed buyers agencies. Yet Trimboli says prospective clients regularly tell his team they spent hours reading anonymous Reddit discussions before making an enquiry. At first glance, that behaviour appears illogical. Why would unverified comments carry more weight than hundreds of authenticated customer reviews?
According to Trimboli, the answer lies in what buyers are actually trying to discover.
Verified reviews tell prospective clients that many people have had positive experiences. They provide evidence that a business has successfully delivered for others. What they don’t explain is what protection exists if someone becomes the exception.
“Buyers aren’t only searching for proof that things usually go well,” he says. “They’re looking for reassurance about what happens when they don’t.”
Until that question is answered clearly, Trimboli believes many investors will continue placing significant weight on anonymous online discussions because they perceive those conversations as more likely to reveal the downside of engaging a buyers agent.
What Many Negative Experiences Have in Common
Spend enough time reading discussions about buyers agents online and certain themes begin to emerge. While every situation is different, the complaints themselves are often remarkably similar. Some investors describe purchasing properties that failed to deliver the capital growth they had expected. Others talk about newly acquired investments sitting vacant for extended periods, creating unexpected holding costs. There are also recurring concerns about whether recommendations were genuinely made in the client’s best interests or influenced by relationships with developers or other commercial incentives.
Trimboli cautions against interpreting these stories as evidence that the industry as a whole lacks integrity. Thousands of Australians have achieved excellent outcomes through reputable buyers agents, and many firms consistently deliver strong results for their clients. The more significant observation, he says, is that when transactions do end badly, there is often very little clarity about who is accountable once the purchase has been completed.
“In many cases, expectations were discussed during the sales process but never formally documented,” he explains. “If the property underperforms, takes months to secure a tenant or simply doesn’t align with what the client believed they were buying, there is rarely an agreed benchmark against which the outcome can be measured.”
According to Trimboli, that lack of accountability was something he experienced firsthand long before co-founding Fresh Start Advisory.
At just 18 years old, he and his brother purchased apartments in the same Brunswick complex without any meaningful strategy or research. One property generated only $10,000 in capital growth over eight years, while the other eventually sold for less than they had originally paid. Not long afterwards, an auction took another unexpected turn when his father unintentionally became the successful bidder on a third property that Trimboli now describes as “a complete and utter nightmare.”
Those experiences became the catalyst for a completely different approach to property investing. Rather than relying on instinct or chasing opportunities as they appeared, Trimboli says he realised successful investing required disciplined research, a long-term strategy and the right team of professionals around every decision. Those lessons ultimately led him and co-founder Frank Ambesi to establish Fresh Start Advisory, with the goal of creating a business built on greater transparency, stronger research and genuine accountability for investors.
To learn more about Fresh Start Advisory and Adrian Trimboli’s approach, visit freshstartadvisory.com.au.
