For generations, the Australian property market has asked buyers to make life-altering financial decisions while navigating deliberately obscured information — a quiet form of institutional deception dressed as market custom. New South Wales is now legislating an end to that arrangement, requiring agents to anchor their advertised prices in comparable sales data and update those figures honestly as campaigns unfold. The reform, backed by $8.4 million in enforcement funding and penalties reaching $110,000 per violation, reflects a broader reckoning with the cost of opacity: not just in dollars
NSW cracks down on underquoting with mandatory price guides and $110k penalties
Time is of the essence when you're trying to buy a property
Mark
So agents have been deliberately listing properties below what they know they'll sell for. That's the core of this?
Mimi
Exactly. They'd quote $800,000 knowing it would go for $1.3 million. It wastes buyers' time and money because people filter by budget and show up to viewings that were never realistic for them.
Luke
But how do we know what the "real" price should be before auction? Isn't the whole point that the market discovers the price?
Mimi
That's fair. But the law doesn't set a final price—it requires an estimated price based on comparable sales. The market can still bid higher.
Mark
What happens if an agent's estimate is too low?
Mimi
They have to update it as the campaign progresses and they get better information. And if they're deliberately underquoting, the penalty is $110,000 or three times commission.
Luke
Three times commission could be substantial, but we don't know what typical commissions are. Is that actually a deterrent?
Mimi
The government thinks so. They've invested $8.4 million to enforce it, which suggests they're serious.
Mark
Does this actually help buyers, or just make the process clearer without changing outcomes?
Mimi
It reduces search fatigue. If you know a property is really $1.2 million, you don't waste a weekend driving to it when your budget is $900,000.
Luke
True, but the source doesn't show data on whether this actually changes sale prices or just makes the path to the same price more transparent.
Mimi
That's a fair gap. We know it changes information flow. Whether it changes actual market outcomes is still unknown.
Il Polso
- Buyers have long been lured to properties priced hundreds of thousands below their true selling figures, turning the housing search into an exhausting and emotionally costly guessing game.
- The gap between advertised and actual prices was so severe that budget filters on major property platforms became functionally useless, leaving buyers like Brittany Daisy to spend countless weekends chasing homes they could never afford.
- NSW is mandating that all property advertisements carry estimated selling prices grounded in comparable sales data, with updates required within one business day as new market information emerges.
- Agents who underquote now face fines of $110,000 or three times their commission — a sharp escalation from existing penalties designed to make deception financially untenable.
- Industry professionals are cautiously welcoming the shift, noting it will rebuild buyer confidence and auction participation, though they stress that an estimated price is not a guaranteed sale price.
For generations, the Australian property market has asked buyers to make life-altering financial decisions while navigating deliberately obscured information — a quiet form of institutional deception dressed as market custom. New South Wales is now legislating an end to that arrangement, requiring agents to anchor their advertised prices in comparable sales data and update those figures honestly as campaigns unfold. The reform, backed by $8.4 million in enforcement funding and penalties reaching $110,000 per violation, reflects a broader reckoning with the cost of opacity: not just in dollars lost, but in weekends spent, hopes raised, and trust eroded.
For years, Australian property buyers have operated under a peculiar disadvantage. Agents would list homes with vague language or prices so far below eventual sale figures that the numbers carried almost no meaning. Buyers would set budget filters, attend viewings, and invest emotionally in properties, only to discover the real price was hundreds of thousands of dollars higher. The frustration was not incidental — it shaped how people approached one of the most consequential decisions of their lives.
New South Wales is legislating an end to this practice. By late 2026, agents will be required to list estimated selling prices on all advertisements, grounded in comparable sales data and updated as campaigns progress. Agents can no longer advertise below their own estimate or the highest registered auction bid. The rules extend across websites, social media, and email campaigns, closing the loopholes that made vague listings so common.
For buyers like Brittany Daisy, 32, the reform arrives with personal weight. She bought an apartment in 2024 after a search she describes as deliberately obscured — properties listed at $800,000 selling for $1.3 million, others carrying no guide at all. She spent hundreds of hours and shed tears over a process the new laws might have made navigable. She believes clearer guides will let buyers be intentional rather than reactive, reducing the emotional fatigue that can push people into poor decisions.
Agents themselves are broadly supportive. Michael Kavvalos of Cobden Hayson sees the laws building trust and drawing hesitant buyers into auctions. Rebecca Reid of John Pye Real Estate notes that agencies which have never published a price will now be compelled to do so, though she cautions that an estimated price is not a final one — the market still determines the outcome. Buyers agent Ben Drayton adds that the laws will prevent agents from selectively citing low comparable sales to justify misleading guides.
The enforcement framework gives the legislation real force. Penalties reach $110,000 or three times the commission earned — a significant escalation from current standards — and the NSW government has committed $8.4 million to back the rules. Whether agents test the boundaries or embrace the transparency, the framework now exists to make the housing search less of a guessing game and more of an honest one.
For years, the Australian property market has operated on a peculiar form of deception. Real estate agents would list homes with vague language—"for sale," "expressions of interest," "contact agent"—or quote prices so far below the eventual selling figure that the numbers became almost meaningless. Buyers would filter searches by budget, drive to viewings, spend hours imagining themselves in a home, only to discover the actual asking price was hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than advertised. The frustration was real and widespread, and it shaped how people approached one of the largest financial decisions of their lives.
That practice is ending in New South Wales. Starting by the end of 2026, real estate agents will be required to list an estimated selling price on all property advertisements and include either a selling price or price range on websites, social media, and email campaigns. The estimated price must be based on comparable sales data and kept current as the campaign progresses. Agents can no longer advertise prices lower than their own estimate or the highest registered bid at auction. The shift is designed to strip away the opacity that has long defined the sector and give buyers genuine information from the moment they begin searching.
Brittany Daisy, a 32-year-old who bought an apartment in 2024, knows exactly what these laws would have meant to her. She set filters on Real Estate and Domain apps based on her budget, only to find the filters useless. Properties listed at $800,000 would sell for $1.3 million. Some had no guide at all, making the search even more futile. "Sometimes they wouldn't have any guide at all, and it would be even worse, and it was a complete waste of time," she said. She spent countless weekends, hundreds of hours, and shed tears over a process that felt deliberately obscured. The new laws, she believes, will let buyers be intentional about which properties to inspect, reducing the fatigue that can lead to poor decisions made under emotional pressure.
Real estate professionals themselves are backing the reform, though with nuance. Michael Kavvalos, a sales associate at Cobden Hayson, said the laws will create "more trust" and get buyers off the fence. When people see a credible guide, they are more likely to attend auctions and bid, he explained. Rebecca Reid from John Pye Real Estate called the changes "really impactful," noting that agencies which have never advertised with a price will now be forced to do so. She cautioned, however, that an estimated price is not a final price—the market ultimately sets what a property sells for. Ben Drayton, a North Shore buyers agent, emphasized that the laws will prevent agents from cherry-picking low comparable sales to justify inflated guides. Buyers will now understand the evidence behind the estimate and know it will be updated as the campaign produces better information.
The teeth in the legislation comes from penalties. Agents who fail to provide accurate estimated selling prices face fines of $110,000 or three times the commission earned on the property—a significantly higher disincentive than current penalties. The NSW government has backed the reform with $8.4 million in funding to enforce the rules. A spokesman for the Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading, Anoulack Chanthivong, framed underquoting as unlawful and wasteful of homebuyers' time and money. The new laws, he said, are focused on improving the accuracy and integrity of advertised guides while delivering transparency from the outset of the sales process.
The requirement to update or remove advertisements within one business day means the market will move faster and more honestly. For an industry long criticized for opacity, the shift represents a fundamental change in how properties are presented to the public. Whether agents and sellers embrace the transparency or test its boundaries remains to be seen, but the framework is now in place to make the housing search less of a guessing game and more of an informed process.
Citazioni salienti
If there was property guiding for $800,000, it could go for $1.3m, and that happened a lot, and it was really frustrating— Brittany Daisy, property buyer
One thing that we need to be very mindful of is that the market sets the price. Regardless of what our estimated selling price is, it actually doesn't really matter at the end of the day if a buyer is not willing to pay what a seller is willing to sell for— Rebecca Reid, John Pye Real Estate
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