Secret Agent for Offshore Clients
Secret Agent has been advising Australians living overseas on property back home since the firm’s founding in 2008. Our first ever client was Lex Perry, a young Australian living in New Zealand at the time, and later in Canada — the beginning of a relationship, and a strand of the firm’s work, that has continued ever since.
We have gone on to serve clients from every continent except Antarctica: in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Tokyo, Dubai, Zurich, Paris, Shanghai, and places less frequented by Australians — Tanzania and Kazakhstan among them. The offshore Australian has always been close to Secret Agent’s heart, and we bring almost two decades of experience to this work. In 2026, the firm published its first major study of the Australian diaspora — its patterns, its property needs, and the particular challenges of purchasing from a distance.
Purchasing from offshore makes it more consequential still, because the initial conditions matter more: the quality of the brief, the judgement of the adviser, the accuracy of what is communicated back to you. When you cannot walk through a property yourself, cannot read a streetscape or feel the quality of a building, each of those factors places a greater weight on correct communication. The adviser does not merely act on your behalf, but shapes what you buy, and their underlying philosophy changes the outcome.
What an offshore client needs is not simply an advocate, but a translator. The eye doing the work on the ground in Australia must understand the client who is offshore and must be able to translate, in the client’s own language — each of us speaks a different one — the true conditions and qualities of the properties they have found. That means we need to understand exactly what you need, not just what you say you want, and we must provide appropriate suggestions with the care and specificity the distance demands.
The briefing process for offshore clients typically takes longer. Much of it happens by video call, across time zones, often across several conversations, and even in person when travel plans align. Getting it right matters more, not less, when the client cannot be present: a well-constructed brief, built on genuine understanding of what you want and why is the difference between a search that finds the right property and one that merely finds a property.
Once the search is underway, Secret Agent becomes your eye on the ground. Properties are assessed through direct inspection, not through portal listings or agent-supplied photography. What the photographs do not show is often as important as what they do: the streetscape, the feel of a building, the nature of the immediate surroundings. Due diligence, negotiation, and settlement all require particular care at distance. Building reports, title searches, and legal documentation need to be not just obtained but interpreted and explained in terms that allow you to make a genuinely informed decision from wherever you are. At the moment of acquisition, when time zones work against you, Secret Agent will act on clear prior instruction with the authority and composure the moment demands.
Settlement and post-purchase care matter as much for offshore clients as for any other, perhaps more so, given that you may not return to Australia for some time after the transaction completes. Secret Agent remains available after settlement to ensure the ownership period begins smoothly, whatever the distance.
We work across Melbourne and its surrounds, select coastal and regional areas, and inner Sydney. For offshore clients considering either city, we are glad to discuss what each market offers and where value currently sits.
If you are an Australian living and working overseas and are considering a property purchase back home — whether as an investment, a future residence, or both — you may also wish to read how we approach residential home acquisition from the outset.
Residential Home Acquisition →
‘Being based in Switzerland and trying to purchase a property in Melbourne, we needed to find someone we could trust and who really got it when it came to what we were looking for. From day one Paul was responsive — despite time zones we always had a reply within a couple of hours — helpful, insightful and balanced. Thanks to his tenacity and his sharp negotiating skills we were able to secure a property that fit all of our criteria. We would work with him again in a heartbeat.’
Kate Dinon, Zurich
If you are based overseas and considering a purchase in Melbourne or inner Sydney, please get in touch.