Sellers across New South Wales will soon have to put a number on their listings. From 17 November 2026, online advertising must carry an expected sale price or a guide range, and agents who get it wrong face penalties of up to $110,000. The timing is awkward for the industry: Sydney’s median home price has dropped 5% year on year.
This is a rule change that lands in a soft market, and that matters for who gains from it.
What the rule actually requires
The obligation applies to online advertising. Physical signs outside homes are exempt, so the street-level pitch can stay vague while the portal listing cannot.
The figure also has to be defensible. Agents must base it on sold prices of similar homes, and it must be a realistic projection rather than a number chosen to attract clicks. NSW follows Victoria, which means more than half of Australia’s population now lives under some form of price disclosure.
The floors that stop the quote drifting down
The more interesting part is the set of limits on how low an advertised price can go. The quoted figure cannot sit below:
- the agent’s own estimate of the sale price
- the highest bid from a registered bidder at an auction that passed in
- any written offer the seller rejected purely because it was too low
A guide range is bound the same way at its lower end. In plain English, an agent cannot hold a seller’s hopes in the ad while privately knowing the market has said otherwise. Each failed auction or knocked-back offer creates a paper trail that sets a minimum for later advertising.
Key numbers
- 17 November 2026: price disclosure starts for online advertising
- Early 2027: government-standard statement of information required
- Up to $110,000 or triple the agent’s commission, whichever is greater, for underquoting
- Up to $27,500 for statement breaches
- Seven in ten property seekers dislike missing prices, according to a 2026 portal survey
Price discovery in a falling market
Underquoting works best when demand is strong. A low guide pulls a crowd, the crowd drives competition, and the final price lands well above the number that attracted them.
In a downturn the incentives shift. Buyers are fewer and more cautious, and the problem for sellers is often an over-optimistic expectation rather than a deliberately low one. The floors work against that too: a passed-in auction’s top bid and a rejected written offer become reference points that an agent cannot ignore in the next campaign.
That is where buyer leverage could improve. If a vendor has already turned down an offer, the advertised price cannot sit below it, so the next buyer starts with better information about where the market actually cleared. We covered the economics of showing a number in our look at NSW price disclosure laws and whether showing a price changes the result, and the same logic applies here: transparency narrows the gap between advertised and achieved, but it does not remove negotiation.
The statement of information adds a second layer
From early 2027, agents must also produce a statement of information covering the property and comparable sales. It must accompany listings, be displayed prominently at inspections, and be handed over within two business days on request.
This is the part buyers can use directly. Comparable sales sit in one document, prepared to a government standard, rather than being scattered across a pitch. For anyone weighing a bid against a soft market, that is a ready-made benchmark. For the agent, it is a second place where a loose estimate can be exposed.
Where the industry objects
The industry body calls the changes political and administratively burdensome. There is a fair point about workload, since agents now carry documentation duties and a tighter evidence standard before they publish a price.
The counter is the demand side. The portal survey found four in five seekers tend to skip unpriced listings, which suggests the market was already pushing sellers towards disclosure. Sellers who refuse to name a number were increasingly losing eyeballs anyway.
What to do with it
Buyers should treat the advertised figure as a floor with a paper trail behind it, not as a bargain signal. Read the comparable sales, check whether a listing has been through a failed auction, and be clear on your ceiling before you walk in. For context on how auctions behave in softer conditions, see our guide to house prices, downturns and auctions.
The unknown is enforcement. Penalties of up to $110,000 or triple the commission are large enough to change behaviour, but only if breaches are found and pursued. Watch the first few months after 17 November for how often agents choose wide ranges to give themselves room.
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General info, not financial advice.
