A Brisbane project marketing firm is offering selling agents "massive" commissions to flog townhouses off-the-plan to investors in the city's outer suburbs.
Avanti Project Marketing, run by real estate agents Trent Milburn and Chris Magick, will pay agents 10 per cent or $35,000 for every townhouse they sell in Ellen Grove a new growth suburb in the city's south west.
The development features 193 three-bedroom townhouses priced between $350,000 and $355,000 with expected rental returns of between 5.2 and 5.5 per cent.
Marketing material for the townhouse development does not name the developer or provide a definite address for the project.
"It's one big house of cards and dodgy spruikers are getting to unsuspecting investors who think they are getting a deal," said Sydney estate agent Edwin Almeida, who was approached to sell the townhouses.
Mr Almeida told the Australian Financial Review the offering would be very appealing to financial planners, mortgage brokers and accountants who are generally trusted by their clients.
"For a mortgage broker, they can earn a commission on the loan and then take home $35,000 which they don't have to disclose to the buyer," he said.
Add on to this the fees charged by the project marketing company and the cost of sale to the developer would be about 13 per cent of the selling price, Mr Almeida said.
"It's a gravy train and the financial planners, brokers and accountants are jumping on. Agents commissions should be disclosed in the contract of sale," he said.
SQM Research director Louis Christopher said a 10 per cent commission smacked of desperation, but was likely to be passed on to the end buyer.
"Either the developer takes the margin hit or its passed on. Developers generally don't like to take a margin hit," he said.
He said the suburb where the townhouses were being developed had had a lot of land releases in recent years, which may be a factor in the big incentives offered to marketeers.
Last year, University of Queensland social planning researcher Laurel Johnson highlighted the south west of Brisbane as an area of poorly-planned development
"There is poor quality of open spaces, poor social infrastructure, poor pathways, a lack of areas to play, and it's in a very hot area where children have to play on hot bitumen roads," Ms Johnson said.
She highlighted the suburb of Richland as having particularly poor amenity including one development that had a burnt-out house on a vacant lot that was used by local children as their playground.
The mystery developer behind the Ellen Grove project, has two projects in Richland, three in Ellen Grove and one in Thornlands.
