Private Sale vs Agent Calculator NZ 2026
The argument about selling privately is usually had in the wrong currency. It gets framed as a saving, when what matters is the gap between two net numbers, and the commission is only one of the things inside that gap. Against the saving sits a question nobody in New Zealand can answer with data: whether the same house sells for the same money without an agent running the campaign. There is no reliable local evidence on that, so this calculator refuses to invent a discount for you. It asks for both prices separately and then tells you the thing that is genuinely useful, which is how far the private price could fall before the saving is wiped out. If that gap is wide, the decision is mostly about how much work you want to do. If it is narrow, the agent is close to free.
Break-even
A private sale would have to come in more than $31,525.00 below the agent price before you were worse off.
Selling through an agent
Selling privately
What each route actually costs you
| Cost | Through an agent | Selling privately |
|---|---|---|
| Commission and GST | $31,625.00 | Nil |
| Marketing | $3,000.00 | $1,500.00 |
| Legal fees | $1,800.00 | $1,800.00 |
| Your own time | Nil | $1,600.00 |
| Total | $36,425.00 | $4,900.00 |
The commission is not the saving
The number people quote when they talk about selling privately is the commission, and it is the wrong number. The saving is the commission minus whatever the private sale costs you in marketing you would not otherwise have bought, in time you would rather have spent elsewhere, and in price if the house sells for less. Only the first of those is easy to work out. The last one is the argument, and it cannot be settled from a spreadsheet, so the sensible way to use this page is to stop trying to predict the private sale price and look instead at the break-even. That number says how much room you have to be wrong.
Tiered commission means the rate you were quoted is not the rate you pay
New Zealand agency agreements almost always charge a higher percentage on the first part of the price and a lower percentage above it, plus a fixed administration fee, plus GST on everything. The effect is that the headline rate overstates what you pay on an expensive house and understates it on a cheap one. On the default figures here the first tier alone accounts for more than two thirds of the commission, even though it covers less than two thirds of the price. If you are comparing two agencies, compare the dollars at your expected price rather than the percentages, because two structures that look similar on paper can differ by thousands at the price you actually sell for.
GST is the part people forget
Agency services carry GST, and it is normally added to the commission rather than included in it. On the figures above that is several thousand dollars sitting on top of a number the vendor has already mentally accepted. When an agent quotes a rate, the useful question is whether the figure includes GST, and the useful follow-up is what the total comes to in dollars at the price being discussed.
Your time is a real cost, and you can set it to zero
Running your own sale means fielding the enquiries, hosting the viewings, and negotiating with buyers who know you have no experience doing it. Some people enjoy that and would genuinely rather do it themselves, in which case putting a dollar value on the hours overstates the cost, and the field is there to be set to zero. Others are giving up paid work or weekends they value, and for them the hours are the second largest item in the comparison after the commission. Both positions are reasonable. The calculator takes no view and simply uses the number you give it.
Worked example
A house is expected to sell for $850,000.00. The agency agreement charges 4% on the first $500,000.00 and 2% above that, plus a $500.00 administration fee. That is $20,000.00 on the first tier and $7,000.00 above it, so $27,500.00 including the fee, and $4,125.00 of GST on top, for a total of $31,625.00.
Add $3,000.00 of marketing and $1,800.00 of legal fees and the agent route leaves $813,575.00. Selling privately at the same price costs $1,500.00 in marketing, the same $1,800.00 in legal fees and 40 hours of your own time valued at $40.00 an hour, so $1,600.00, leaving $845,100.00.
The private sale is $31,525.00 ahead, which is 3.71% of the sale price. Put the other way round, a private sale would have to fall below $818,475.00 before the agent route won.
How this is calculated
Commission is charged at the first tier rate on the part of the sale price up to the tier break, and at the second rate on anything above it, and the administration fee is added to that total. GST is applied to the combined figure at the current rate, since agency services are taxable supplies. Net proceeds through an agent are the sale price less commission including GST, less marketing, less legal fees. Net proceeds selling privately are the private sale price less private marketing, less legal fees, less your hours multiplied by your hourly value. The break-even price is the private sale price at which those two net figures are equal, found by adding the private route's own costs to the agent route's net proceeds, so it moves whenever any input on either side changes.
Official sources
- Selling a property, Real Estate Authority
- Real Estate Agents Act 2008, legislation.govt.nz, for the exemption that lets an owner sell their own home
- GST, Inland Revenue
- Buying and selling a house, Consumer Protection
Related NZ calculators
- Real Estate Commission Calculator for the commission on its own
- Net Sale Proceeds Calculator for everything left after the mortgage is repaid
- Flat Fee vs Percentage Commission Calculator if you are comparing agency models rather than going private
- Break-Even Sale Price Calculator for the price that recovers what you paid
- Selling Privately vs an Agent, the guide behind this calculator
Related calculators
- Real Estate Agent Commission Split Calculator NZ 2026/27: what a salesperson actually keeps.
- Real Estate Commission Calculator NZ 2026: Agent Fee on Property Sale.
- Real Estate Commission Comparison Calculator NZ 2026: enter one sale price and see what every major New Zealand real estate .
- Seller Offer Comparison Calculator NZ: Price Against Conditions and Dates.
How to compare a private house sale against using an agent in New Zealand
- Enter the price you expect through an agent. Use the agent appraisal, or a realistic figure from recent comparable sales.
- Enter the price you expect privately. Set this separately. Whether a private sale achieves the same price is the whole argument, so the calculator makes you state your own view rather than assuming one.
- Enter the commission structure. Take the rates from the agency agreement in front of you. New Zealand commission is usually tiered, with a higher rate on the first part of the price.
- Add marketing and legal costs for each route. Marketing is normally paid by the vendor either way. Legal fees are similar, but a private sale often needs more from the lawyer.
- Value your own time. A private sale means you run the viewings and the negotiation. Put an hourly value on that so the comparison is honest.
- Read the break-even price. The result shows what you keep either way, and the private sale price that would exactly match the agent outcome.