A couple is selling their Queensland home on Facebook Marketplace instead of using real estate agents, in protest against commission fees of up to $40,000.

Tech entrepreneur Warren Burger and his wife, Nolene, both aged 36, moved to Australia from South Africa almost nine years ago.

In 2023, they bought a 750 sqm property with four bedrooms and two bathrooms on the Sunshine Coast for $1.2 million.

But now, they have decided to sell it to access capital to help them start a new venture in the technology sector – and they’ve taken an unorthodox route.

‘We went through the process of interviewing a bunch of agents,’ Mr Burger told the Daily Mail.

‘None of them could honestly justify an exorbitant fee of $30,000 to $40,000 commission to sell the house. That’s why I decided I was going to sell it myself and document the entire process. 

‘I don’t feel like a real estate agent’s job is useless or that they’re not needed at all. 

‘But after speaking to my conveyancer, I realised how achievable it is to actually sell a property in Australia without the two major platforms and their gatekeepers.’

Tech entrepreneur Warren Burger (pictured) and his wife, Nolene, are selling their Sunshine Coast home for $1.6 million on Facebook Marketplace

The couple have lived in the 750 sqm home for three years but want to use money from the sale to fund a new business venture

In a tongue-in-cheek move, Mr Burger launched a social media platform with the name ‘agents_want_me_cancelled’ to share his journey, gaining thousands of views. 

In one video, he described how realestate.com.au had ‘banned’ him from selling directly.

He opened up about the challenge, explaining how being prevented from the website had pushed him to use Facebook Marketplace instead.

‘I asked them if I could list my house on their platform… without using a real estate agent [or agency], and I was told that I can’t do that,’ he said.

‘The strange thing is, landlords can actually list their properties on the platform and do a self-managed rental listing, but ordinary Australians are locked out from being able to self-manage sales of their property, even though they own it.

‘That’s why I chose to go to Facebook Marketplace and do it there. I live in a nice area, it’s a nice house, it’s a good street. You can pretty much put a board up outside the house and it would sell itself. 

‘That was my frustration around paying the commission for the amount of work and effort that’s involved in making that particular transaction happen.’

Mr Burger has listed his property for $1.65 million.  

Mr Burger said the couple decided not to use a real estate agent to sell their house due to a lack of justification for the ‘exorbitant’ commission fees of up to $40,000

The tech entrepreneur added that he does not think agents are ‘useless’, but that the system needs to evolve 

Prospective owners can then request to book an appointment rather than the couple holding an open house.

Mr Burger said there has been plenty of interest and that he and his wife are in no rush to sell their home to anyone, but there have also been challenges.

‘So probably the biggest challenge would be the distribution,’ he said.

‘I can’t tell you how many [direct messages] I’ve received from people that are like, “Where are you selling? We’re interested in buying that.”

‘I reckon I could close the deal within two days from now through social media, but I don’t want to do it that way.

‘I know that not everyone who’s selling as a homeowner has the opportunity to do that, and I’m doing this to prove to myself and to people out there that it can be done without the gatekeepers and the platforms in the industry.’

He also said that, while real estate agents had seen his social media, he had not heard from a single buyer’s agent who could ‘close a deal really quickly and easily if they wanted to’.

If Facebook does not work for Mr Burger, he said the next step will be to try the marketplace website Gumtree. 

Mr Burger said there had been challenges in distributing his listing and that he had received no messages from buyer’s agents in relation to the property 

The home, which is near the popular holiday spot Noosa, will be listed on Gumtree if Mr Burger doesn’t find the right buyer on Facebook Marketplace

Asked if he had any reactions from real estate agents, Mr Burger said some had been justifying the difficulty of their roles.

‘I have no views that it’s not a difficult job, to be honest with you,’ he said.

‘Roughly 87 per cent of real estate agents bail out of the industry within the first five years, and that’s why I feel the whole system is fragmented. 

‘The adoption of technology and AI, I don’t think, has grown at the rate it should in that industry, and that’s why it’s so difficult to make sales because they’re following the same procedures they have for the last 20 years. 

‘Professionals in the industry are going to have to evolve with the way that the industry is going to be rewritten soon.’

Mr Burger suggested that instead of being paid a huge commission for the entire transaction, agents should be paid according to their specific contributions to the sale.

‘For example, if an agent hosts an open home, they [could get paid] $200 or $400 to host the open home,’ he said.

The Daily Mail has contacted realestate.com.au for comment.