House of cards
Dashdot’s collapse raises a bigger question for Australia’s gravity-defying property market: is this an isolated failure or a sign of a deeper reckoning?
Is the collapse of a prominent national buyers agency an isolated business failure, or a harbinger of something more significant in Australia’s residential property market?
That’s the question we have been asking at Capital Brief after online buyers agent Dashdot, which employed more than 100 people and won several entrepreneurship awards, sank into voluntary liquidation last week.
Dashdot, known for its prolific social media presence, charged would-be housing investors tens of thousands of dollars to find and acquire investment properties across the country, using proprietary software to identify hotspots in regional areas and capital cities. It is one of many such firms to emerge in recent years in what remains a largely unregulated industry.
As Jack Derwin reported extensively this week, some customers who paid upfront fees totalling tens of thousands of dollars are now resigned to losing that money. Meanwhile, Teneo managing partner Rebecca Gill, who has been appointed liquidator, says it is too early to say what happened or whether anyone will get their money back as she begins her investigations.
