Every buyer knows the sting: months of Saturdays spent inspecting a home advertised in your range, only to watch it sell for hundreds of thousands more. That practice, underquoting, has just become genuinely dangerous for agents in NSW, with sweeping new laws now passed by Parliament. Here’s what changed and how to use it to your advantage.
What the New Laws Do
The reforms attack underquoting from several directions at once. Maximum penalties jump fivefold, from $22,000 to $110,000 or three times the agent’s commission, whichever is greater, and fines for dummy bidding at auctions double to $110,000.
Just as significant are the transparency rules. A price or price guide is now mandatory on all property advertising, ending the “contact agent” guessing game. Agents must publish a Statement of Information explaining how the estimated price was calculated, including comparable sales and the suburb’s median. And agents are prohibited from advertising a price lower than an offer the seller has already rejected, one of the oldest tricks in the book.
“These laws mean that honesty and transparency are now the standard for property sales,” said Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading Anoulack Chanthivong.
The Enforcement Behind It
Laws only matter if someone enforces them, and here the machinery is already running. NSW Fair Trading’s compliance campaign, Operation Sunlight, has issued “please explain” notices to 25 agencies with more under investigation, after audits flagged listings where the gap between guide and sale price reached 150 per cent. Fair Trading also gains new powers, including compelling agents to publicly disclose breaches and requiring independent valuation checks on listed properties.
Buyers get a research tool out of this too: the Name and Shame Register lets you check the disciplinary history of any agent or agency before you rely on their price guide. Details are on the NSW Fair Trading website.
How Buyers Should Use the Changes
The Statement of Information is your new best friend. Before falling for a guide price, read the SOI and check the comparable sales it cites, if the comparables are genuinely similar homes sold recently nearby, the guide has substance; if they’re smaller, older or in a lesser pocket, treat the guide sceptically and do your own comparison using recent sales.
Keep your own paper trail too. If a property you pursued sells far above a guide that never moved despite strong interest, that’s exactly the pattern the new laws target, and reports to Fair Trading now carry real consequences. The guide should be revised during a campaign as feedback comes in, and a guide that never budges is itself a signal.
The National Picture
NSW isn’t acting alone. The new regime is modelled on Victoria’s Statement of Information system, and Victoria is pushing further, moving to require agents to disclose actual sale prices once deals go unconditional. The direction across the country is the same: pricing games that were long shrugged off as “just how real estate works” are being legislated out.
The Bigger Picture
No law will make every guide price perfect, since markets move and honest estimates can miss. What changes is the incentive: at $110,000 or triple commission per offence, underquoting stops being a cheap marketing tactic and becomes a threat to an agency’s survival. For buyers, the practical shift is confidence, a guide price in NSW now comes with homework attached, and you’re entitled to read it.
Epik Wire covers the Australian property market in plain language for buyers and owners. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed.
