Real Estate Agent Adelaide: Why the Biggest Figure Is Usually the Wrong One to Trust

The agent quoting the highest figure must simply understand the market better than the others.This is the assumption most sellers land on once three appraisals come back forty to sixty thousand dollars apart. It seems like straightforward logic. Greater market knowledge should translate into a more accurate figure, so the agent quoting the highest number must simply be the one who has researched the property most thoroughly.The Gap Between Appraisals That Nobody QuestionsA seller who collects three appraisals for the same property is not usually looking at three versions of the same number with small variations. The spread is often large enough that at least one agent has to be substantially wrong. Sellers rarely stop to ask which one that might be. Instead, the natural instinct is to trust the highest figure, because it is the one that matches what the seller was already hoping to hear.Beyond being a valuation, an appraisal always carries a second function: it is a pitch for the mandate, whether or not the agent frames it that way. Two agents can walk through an identical property, review identical comparable sales data, and still arrive at wildly different figures, because one is genuinely pricing the house while the other is pricing their own chance of winning the listing. This is worth understanding before meeting with any agent at all For sellers wanting a clearer picture of how this plays out locally helpful resource is a reasonable place to start. The specifics change from agent to agent, but the underlying pattern rarely does.Why the Highest Number Is not the Most Accurate OneAn agent quoting a high figure is not necessarily demonstrating superior market knowledge. Often they are demonstrating a willingness to tell the seller what they want to hear in order to win the mandate. This is not always deliberate deception. Some agents genuinely believe their optimistic number, at least until the campaign runs and the market fails to agree with them. Either way, the seller ends up choosing an agent based on a number that was never really about the market at all.The uncomfortable part of this is that the seller rarely finds out until well into the campaign, once the property has already been on the market for several weeks without the interest the appraisal implied it should attract. Anyone who has watched a few of these campaigns unfold can see why Those wanting a fuller picture of how agent selection actually works more information puts some useful structure around this decision. The details vary by campaign, but the underlying lesson tends to repeat.The Difference Between a Confident Number and an Accurate OneThe appraisals worth trusting are rarely the ones stated with the most enthusiasm. They are the ones supported by specific comparable sales, recent settlement data, and an honest account of what buyers have actually paid for similar properties nearby in recent months. An agent who can walk through the evidence behind their number is doing something fundamentally different to one who simply asserts a figure with confidence. Confidence of delivery and accuracy of number are not the same thing, and sellers who cannot tell the difference tend to select for the wrong one.There is an easy way to test this. An agent whose number genuinely holds up can usually name the specific sales it is based on, within a sensible timeframe and a genuinely comparable location. An agent leaning mostly on optimism tends to talk in vague terms about a strong market, without ever pointing to anything concrete behind the figure just quoted.The property is not the problem here. The appraisal process is.What Matters More Than the Number ItselfThe question worth asking is rarely who thinks the property is worth the most. It is closer to: who has a defensible strategy for reaching genuine market value, and who is prepared to have an honest conversation if the campaign does not move at the quoted figure straight away. The track record of an agent on this specific point, how they have handled properties that needed a price adjustment mid-campaign, tends to reveal far more than any single number offered at the first meeting.This is also where a direct question tends to teach a seller the most. An agent willing to talk through what happens if the opening weeks do not go to plan is behaving very differently to one who has only ever discussed the upside.Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat explains the gap between appraisals on an identical property?Appraisals combine genuine market judgement with an incentive to win the listing, and different agents weigh those two things differently. The spread between quotes often reflects that incentive as much as it reflects the property itself. An agent under pressure to secure new business has a reason to lean optimistic that has nothing to do with the comparable sales in the area.Is it ever safe to just go with the highest number quoted?On occasion, yes, but only when the evidence behind it earns that trust, not because it happens to be the biggest figure quoted. A high number backed by real comparable sales bears little resemblance to one offered purely to secure the business, and asking what it is actually based on is the only way to separate the two.What questions reveal more than simply asking what the house is worth?Asking what the number is actually based on, and how the agent intends to respond if the property does not draw offers at that figure early in the campaign, usually reveals more than the appraisal itself. It also tends to expose which agents are comfortable defending their figure and which were quietly hoping the question would not surface.Does the size of the appraisal reflect the quality of the agent?Not really. A lower figure backed by an agent who can clearly walk through the comparable sales is often a far stronger signal than a higher one with nothing behind it. Sellers who choose agents based purely on the size of the quoted figure are optimising for the wrong thing entirely.An appraisal is not a valuation of the house. It is an opening bid for the listing itself, and sellers who understand this early tend to make a very different decision to those who simply follow the biggest number to the door. Across the Gawler District and the northern Adelaide corridor, where appraisal spreads between agents can be just as wide as anywhere else in Adelaide, this distinction tends to matter more, not less, given how quickly a mispriced campaign can lose momentum in a market where comparable listings appear close together.