A significant change is taking place in the way Australian real estate agencies can choose where and how they advertise their clients’ properties. Following an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, REA Group has agreed to stop using or enforcing contractual provisions that could require agencies to list all or most of their properties on realestate.com.au.
The change matters because online property advertising is usually presented to a seller as part of an individual marketing campaign. The agent recommends where the property should appear, which advertising tier is appropriate and how much the vendor should spend. Behind that recommendation, however, an agency may also have its own commercial agreement with the property portal.
The ACCC was concerned that some of REA’s agreements reduced the freedom agencies had to make those decisions property by property. If an agency was already required to place virtually every listing on realestate.com.au, another portal could struggle to compete for an individual property even where the agent or owner might otherwise have considered a different advertising approach.
REA has now given a court-enforceable undertaking that changes those arrangements for three years. It is an important competition development for the real estate industry, although it does not mean realestate.com.au is disappearing from campaigns, that premium advertising is being abolished or that a court has found REA broke the law.
What the ACCC Was Concerned About
Realestate.com.au is Australia’s largest online residential property listing portal. Its reach makes it an important advertising channel for many agencies and vendors, particularly in markets where buyers routinely begin their property search online.
REA generally deals with agencies rather than individual home sellers. An agency holds a subscription allowing it to upload properties and can also purchase different listing products that affect the prominence and presentation of those properties on the portal. Higher listing tiers can provide features such as greater visibility, larger presentation and stronger positioning within search results.
The ACCC’s investigation focused on the contractual arrangements sitting behind that system.
According to the regulator, most of REA’s contracts had required real estate agencies to list all of their properties for sale or lease on realestate.com.au. Other arrangements required or encouraged agencies to commit all or part of their listing volume to products carrying higher fees.
The ACCC considered that these provisions could limit an agency’s choices and make it more difficult for competing listing services to gain business.
That competition issue is more subtle than simply asking whether an agency could also advertise a property somewhere else. Agencies were not necessarily prohibited from advertising on another portal. A property could appear on realestate.com.au, Domain and elsewhere at the same time.
The concern was that if the agency was already contractually committed to purchasing an REA listing for almost every property it handled, a competing service could find it difficult to persuade that agency to use the competing service instead for a particular property. The agency had already committed part of the advertising decision before sitting down to design that individual campaign.
REA Can No Longer Require All or Most Listings
The undertaking prevents REA from entering into new agreements containing provisions that require an agency to list all or the majority of its available properties on realestate.com.au as a condition of obtaining its listing services.
Importantly, REA has also agreed not to enforce equivalent provisions in existing agreements. The change therefore goes beyond removing the wording when contracts eventually come up for renewal.
An agency can still decide that listing every property on realestate.com.au makes commercial sense. In many markets, the audience available through the portal may make that an entirely reasonable advertising strategy. The difference is that the decision should no longer arise simply because the agency’s subscription requires virtually its entire stock to be listed there.
This creates considerably more room for an agency to assess a campaign individually. A property with an established buyer pool, a strong agency database, substantial direct enquiry or an unusual marketing strategy may not necessarily require exactly the same combination of portal advertising as another property.
It also creates more opportunity for competing portals and future entrants to persuade agencies to trial their services on individual listings rather than first having to displace an agency-wide commitment to the dominant platform.
Sponsorship Arrangements Are Also Affected
The undertaking reaches beyond ordinary listing subscriptions. REA has also agreed that sponsorship funding cannot be conditional on an agency committing to list or upgrade all or the majority of its properties to a particular listing tier for a future period.
That is important in an industry where property portals can have broader commercial relationships with agencies, franchise groups and networks. Sponsorship may support training, education, events or marketing, while the agency also purchases advertising products from the same provider.
The ACCC’s position is effectively that those arrangements should not be used to secure an all-or-most commitment to future listings or upgrades.
Sponsorship itself is not prohibited. Nor does the undertaking prevent REA and an agency from negotiating ordinary commercial arrangements. The restriction is directed at tying that support to a commitment covering all or the majority of the agency’s future listings at a specified tier.
Greater Freedom to Downgrade Listings Starts in 2027
A second important change begins on 1 January 2027 and concerns agencies that commit listings to higher advertising tiers.
REA has agreed that relevant listing-tier contracts must give agencies the ability to downgrade at least 25 per cent of their eligible sale listings and at least 25 per cent of their eligible rental listings to a lower tier. The calculation is based on eligible listings during the preceding calendar half-year period.
This does not abolish premium or agency-wide depth products. An agency may still choose a contract under which large numbers of properties receive enhanced advertising, and REA can continue selling higher-priced listing products.
The difference is that an agency must have meaningful scope to move some eligible listings down rather than being locked into applying the same higher tier across virtually its entire volume.
That flexibility could be particularly relevant when an agency handles a wide range of properties. A campaign for a prestige home in a highly competitive market may justify substantial portal exposure, while another property may already have strong buyer interest or require a different allocation of its advertising budget. Treating both campaigns identically simply because of an agency-wide portal contract can remove an important part of the agent’s judgement.
What This Means for Property Sellers
For sellers, the most useful consequence is greater scope for the advertising conversation to begin with the property rather than the agency’s portal commitment.
A vendor should still expect an agent to recommend the advertising channels capable of reaching the right buyers. In many cases that recommendation will continue to include realestate.com.au, and there will be properties for which a higher listing tier is considered worthwhile.
There should, however, be more room to discuss the alternatives. That can include the standard or upgraded listing products available on different portals, the agency’s own website and buyer database, social advertising, direct marketing and any other channels suitable for the campaign.
The ACCC has specifically encouraged vendors and landlords to discuss the available listing options and fees with their agents following the undertaking.
That conversation is particularly useful where vendor-paid advertising forms a substantial part of the marketing budget. Rather than treating a particular portal or upgrade as automatically required, the agent should be able to explain why it is being recommended for that property and what it is expected to contribute to the campaign.
Greater choice does not automatically mean the cheapest advertising package will produce the best result. Property marketing is ultimately about reaching suitable buyers and creating enough awareness and competition around the property. A lower-cost campaign can be poor value if it materially reduces useful exposure, just as spending more on advertising provides little benefit where the additional product does not contribute meaningfully to the sale.
The opportunity is to make that decision on its merits.
What This Means for Real Estate Agencies
For agencies, the undertaking gives greater commercial freedom over one of the most important parts of a sales campaign.
An agency can increasingly treat portal advertising as a campaign decision rather than simply an agency-wide default. That creates scope to assess the property, location, expected buyer behaviour, existing enquiry, marketing budget and competing advertising options before deciding where the listing belongs and what level of exposure is justified.
Independent agencies may find that flexibility particularly useful because they are not necessarily managing the same volumes or structures as major networks. An agency building its own database, local website audience and direct marketing capability may want to allocate advertising differently between properties without losing access to realestate.com.au altogether.
The change could also make experimentation easier. A competing portal no longer necessarily has to persuade an agency to move its whole listing inventory before it can demonstrate whether its service works. It can compete for individual properties and allow the agency to assess the results.
Over time, that listing-by-listing competition is potentially more important than the immediate contractual changes. A new property portal is unlikely to challenge an established market leader if agencies are contractually committed to buying the incumbent product for almost every listing before the newcomer has an opportunity to compete.
The Current Contracts Show Why Flexibility Matters
REA’s residential customer terms illustrate how agency subscriptions and listing products can interact. Its product structure includes standard listings as well as enhanced products such as Feature, Highlight and Premiere listings. Agencies can also enter depth contracts that apply upgraded products to an agreed number of listings or, under an All Depth arrangement, automatically elevate new listings to an agreed product.
These arrangements can provide discounted rates and administrative simplicity for agencies that regularly use higher-tier advertising. They can also create substantial forward commitments because the agency is agreeing in advance to purchase a particular volume or type of advertising.
The ACCC undertaking does not dismantle that commercial model. What it changes is the extent to which access, sponsorship or higher-tier commitments can remove practical choice from the agency.
That distinction is important. The intervention is aimed at restrictive contractual provisions, not at preventing realestate.com.au from competing strongly for agency advertising business.
There Has Been No Court Finding Against REA
The legal status of the outcome should be described carefully.
The ACCC did not take REA to court and obtain a judgment that the company breached competition law. REA has not been fined as part of this matter, and there has been no finding of legal wrongdoing.
The ACCC was concerned that the contractual provisions may have breached section 45 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, which deals with contracts, arrangements or understandings that have the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition.
REA does not share the ACCC’s competition concerns but agreed to address them through a court-enforceable undertaking. The company said when announcing the resolution that it had engaged constructively with the regulator and remained focused on providing choice, value and flexibility to its customers.
A court-enforceable undertaking is nevertheless more than an informal promise. It is given under section 87B of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. If the ACCC considers that REA has breached its terms, it can apply to a court for enforcement orders. Those orders can include requiring compliance and, in appropriate circumstances, dealing with financial benefits obtained from a breach or loss suffered by another person.
The Undertaking Runs for Three Years
REA and realestate.com.au signed the undertaking in September 2026, with the ACCC accepting it on 11 September. The regulator publicly announced the outcome on 14 September.
The commitments operate for three years, through to September 2029. REA must also establish and maintain a competition law compliance program, with risk assessment, training, reporting and independent review requirements forming part of the undertaking.
REA has agreed to re-engage with the ACCC after at least 24 months so the parties can consider the progress of the business changes required by the undertaking.
The immediate restriction on requiring agencies to list all or most properties applies from the commencement of the undertaking. The requirement providing at least 25 per cent downgrade flexibility for eligible sale and rental listings begins on 1 January 2027.
What the ACCC Decision Does Not Do
The changes give agencies more freedom, but they do not regulate every aspect of online property advertising.
There is no new cap on the amount realestate.com.au can charge for a listing. The undertaking does not prescribe what an agency may charge a vendor for marketing, require REA to reduce its prices or guarantee that sellers will spend less on advertising.
It also does not require an agent to offer every available portal to every client. An agency can continue recommending realestate.com.au, can choose to place every suitable listing on the platform and can recommend premium products where it considers them appropriate.
Nor does it establish that previous advertising charges were unlawful or create an automatic entitlement to refunds.
The central change is narrower and potentially more influential: the agency should have greater freedom to decide what to purchase for an individual property without its access to the platform being dependent on a commitment covering all or most of its listing inventory.
More Competition Could Eventually Matter More Than the Contract Changes
Realestate.com.au has an enormous audience, and that audience is one of the reasons agents and sellers continue to value the platform. Removing contractual restrictions does not remove the network effect created when large numbers of buyers, sellers and agents all use the same service.
It does, however, give competing services a better opportunity to prove themselves.
A property portal grows by attracting listings, because listings attract buyers and buyers make the portal more valuable to agents. When agencies have greater freedom to allocate individual properties between competing services, a smaller platform has more opportunities to build that cycle.
The undertaking therefore has implications beyond the cost of a particular advertisement. It opens more of the property advertising market to genuine listing-by-listing competition.
That competition could emerge through established portals, newer listing services or different ways of connecting properties with buyers. Agencies themselves may also place greater value on their own websites, databases and direct marketing when they have more freedom over how vendor advertising budgets are allocated.
Property Advertising Should Become a More Individual Decision
The practical effect for most sellers will probably be gradual rather than dramatic. Realestate.com.au remains the country’s largest residential listing portal, and there is no reason to expect agents to suddenly stop using a platform capable of reaching such a large property audience.
The more meaningful change is what happens before the advertisement is purchased.
An agent should increasingly be able to look at the individual property, its likely buyers and the available marketing budget, then recommend the combination of advertising that makes sense for that campaign. A vendor can ask what each portal and listing tier contributes, what alternatives are available and whether the proposed level of exposure is justified by the property and market.
That is the competitive choice the ACCC considered was being restricted. Its intervention does not dictate which advertising service should win that decision. It gives agencies and their clients more opportunity to make the decision themselves.
Editorial Disclosure: Somners notes that one of its executives has a controlling interest in a business that competes with realestate.com.au in the online property listings market. This relationship is disclosed in the interests of transparency given the subject matter of this article.
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