Real estate advertising in New South Wales has changed in 2026, and the rules are now stricter than they have been in a decade. Agents face bigger penalties, tighter price advertising rules and new paperwork attached to online listings. If you market property in NSW, the way you write, price and photograph your listings needs a review.
This guide explains the real estate advertising guidelines NSW agents must follow in plain English. It covers price advertising, underquoting, photography, virtual staging, drone images, floor plans, property descriptions and social media. Every section is written so you can hand it to a new sales assistant and they will understand it.
We produce listing media every day for agencies across Sydney, so we see where compliance problems start. Most of them start in the marketing, not the contract. That is why we have written this from a media and listing point of view, alongside our other real estate marketing guides and our real estate photography services in Sydney.
Real estate advertising in NSW sits under three main sets of rules. The first is the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002, which governs how agents behave and how they quote prices. The second is the Australian Consumer Law, and the third is the Fair Trading Act 1987.
Section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law bans misleading or deceptive conduct in trade or commerce. Section 30 goes further and specifically covers the sale of land. It bans false or misleading claims about the price, the location, the characteristics of the land, how the land may lawfully be used, and the facilities connected with it.
The penalties under section 30 are serious. The maximum is $220,000 for an individual and $1.1 million for a company. That is before any disciplinary action from NSW Fair Trading is added on top.
There is one principle that runs through all of it. An advertisement can break the law even when every single fact in it is technically true, if the overall impression it creates is wrong. Silence and omission can mislead just as easily as a false statement.
This matters for marketing teams because the “impression” is usually created by images, not words. A photo, a floor plan or a drone shot can create a false belief in a buyer’s mind long before they read the copy. That is why our whole property media production process is built around accuracy first, and why our Sydney photography and videography team shoots properties as they actually are.
The agent is responsible for the representations they make. You cannot shift the blame to the buyer by arguing they should have inspected the property or made their own enquiries. You also cannot shift it entirely to a supplier who produced the image or the copy.
In practice this means the listing agent signs off on everything. Photos, floor plans, drone footage, descriptions, price guides and social posts all carry the agent’s name. Building an internal approval step before anything goes live is the cheapest insurance available.
Advertising rules in NSW require that a real estate advertisement identifies the licence holder behind it. Buyers are entitled to know which licensed agent or agency is making the representations they are relying on. Anonymous or vaguely branded listings create risk.
Disclosure is the second requirement to watch. If a licensed agent has an ownership interest or another relevant interest in the property being advertised, that interest needs to be disclosed. Buyers must not be left with the impression they are dealing with a neutral intermediary when they are not.
The third requirement is accuracy of the basic property facts. Address, suburb, land size, number of rooms, inclusions and property type all need to reflect reality. Small errors that survive copy-paste from an old listing are one of the most common compliance failures we see.
From late 2026, a price or price range will also need to appear on residential sale advertisements that agents arrange to be published. We cover that in detail further down. Getting your listing copy and your data consistent from day one is far easier than fixing it later, which is why many agencies use our professional real estate copywriting service alongside their photography.
Commercial listings deserve their own mention here. Commercial property advertising is still caught by the Australian Consumer Law, so claims about zoning, floor area, permitted use and outgoings must be accurate. Our commercial property photography team works to the same accuracy standard we apply to residential listings.
Underquoting is when an agent advertises or quotes a price that is lower than their own reasonable estimate of the likely selling price. It attracts buyers who can never win the property, and it wastes their time and money on inspections, reports and auction attendance. NSW Fair Trading treats it as one of the most serious advertising breaches in the industry.
The core rules have applied for years and still apply now. The agent’s reasonable estimate of the likely selling price must be recorded in the agency agreement. That estimate is the floor for everything the agent says publicly.
Where the estimate is expressed as a price range, the top of the range cannot be more than ten per cent above the bottom. A range starting at $1,000,000 cannot go higher than $1,100,000. Anything wider than that is non-compliant on its face.
NSW rules prohibit vague price language that hides or understates the estimate. That includes “offers above” and “offers over” a stated amount. It also includes symbols or words that obscure the value, such as adding a plus sign to a figure like $900,000+.
Agents also cannot quote a selling price to a buyer that is below the recorded estimate, whether it is written, spoken, on a portal or in a text message. The rule follows the communication, not the format. A casual price mentioned at an open home is treated the same as one printed in a brochure.
Auction results carry their own rule. An agent must not make a statement about the last bid accepted at an auction where the property was passed in, if that bid was a vendor bid, unless the statement makes clear it was a vendor bid.
Agents must be able to show the seller how the estimate was reached and how any revision was justified. Comparable sales evidence should be retained, not just referenced. If the final sale price differs from the estimate, you may need to show that the difference was reasonable in the circumstances.
Good marketing evidence helps here too. When a campaign is supported by strong professional media, agents can more easily explain price movement as genuine market response rather than a mispriced launch. Agencies planning a campaign can compare formats in our portfolio of recent Sydney listing work or book a property media shoot before the estimate is finalised.
The 2026 changes come from the Property and Stock Agents Amendment (Underquoting and Other Agent Conduct) Act 2026. The reforms are being rolled out in two stages. The first stage started on 29 June 2026, and the second stage is expected to start towards the end of 2026.
The first stage lifted maximum court-imposed penalties across a wide range of offences under the property and stock agents laws. For some offences the maximum reaches $110,000 for a corporation and $55,000 for an individual. These cover matters such as acting as an agent without a licence, dummy bidding at auctions and mishandling trust money.
A new penalty of up to $11,000 now applies to agents and assistant agents who fail to meet continuing professional development requirements. There is also a new offence of impersonating a Fair Trading officer, carrying a maximum of $110,000.
NSW Fair Trading also gained broader disciplinary powers from that date. It can require a person to publicise their own misconduct, require a licensee in charge or an independent valuer to verify an agent’s estimated selling price, and suspend an agent from specified activities such as property sales. It can also direct an agent to complete further training by a set date.
Past conduct now counts against you as well. When deciding what disciplinary action to impose, Fair Trading must consider an agent’s previous offences and other non-compliance. Repeat problems in listing advertising are no longer isolated events.
The second stage is the one that will change day-to-day marketing. Agents will need to consider the sold prices of comparable properties in a prescribed way when setting and revising an estimated selling price. They will also need to keep records about how those estimates were made and revised.
Residential sale advertisements arranged by an agent will need to include a selling price or price range. This applies across websites, social media platforms, applications, email and other electronic communication. A for sale sign placed on or next to the property is excluded, although if such a sign does show a price, that price must still comply.
There will also be hard limits on how low an advertised price can go. An agent will not be able to advertise a price below their estimated selling price, below the highest registered bid at an auction where the property was passed in, or below a written offer the seller rejected only because the amount was too low. Where a range is used, the bottom of the range must not fall below any of those figures.
Timing becomes a compliance issue too. Advertisements will need to be updated or removed to stay compliant, within one business day for online advertising and as soon as practicable for everything else. Agencies with listings spread across portals, their own site, email campaigns and social pages will need a single update process, which is where planned social media visual content and consistent photo and video editing services make a real operational difference.
Underquoting: Real estate agents who engage in underquoting may face a maximum penalty of $110,000, or three times the agent’s commission, whichever is higher.
Statement of Information non-compliance: Failure to comply with Statement of Information requirements may result in a maximum penalty of $27,500.
Fair Trading monetary penalty – Individual: An individual may face a maximum monetary penalty of $27,500 for relevant breaches under Fair Trading requirements.
Fair Trading monetary penalty – Corporation: A corporation may face a maximum monetary penalty of $55,000 for relevant Fair Trading breaches.
The Statement of Information is the biggest new document in NSW property advertising. Agents engaged to sell a residential property will be required to prepare one for that property. It will use an approved form published by NSW Fair Trading.
The Statement of Information will set out certain information about the property, including the comparable sales the agent identified. The purpose is to let buyers see the reasoning behind the price, not just the number. It is designed to make price estimates auditable rather than assertive.
Display obligations sit alongside preparation. Agents will need to include the Statement of Information, or a link to a copy hosted on a website, in online advertisements for the sale of the property. That covers websites, social media platforms, applications, email and other electronic communications.
There are two further obligations to plan for. The Statement of Information must be displayed prominently at inspections of the property. A copy must also be provided to a prospective buyer within two business days if they ask for it, or ask for a copy of the contract for sale.
For marketing teams, this means your listing assets and your compliance documents now travel together. Every social tile, email campaign and landing page in a residential sale campaign will need the link attached. Building that into your template set now will save a scramble later.
Photography is where advertising compliance is most often lost, because images do the heavy lifting in a listing. NSW Fair Trading guidance is direct on this point: photographs used in a campaign must leave the buyer with the right impression. Buyers rely heavily on online images when deciding whether to inspect.
There are three things agents must not do with property photographs. They must not modify images, or allow them to be modified, so that the images no longer truthfully and fairly represent the property. They must not change the appearance of a property by digitally adding or removing features. They must not zoom in on a view to make it appear closer than it is.
Adjusting lighting only to compensate for poor lighting conditions may be acceptable. That is a narrow allowance, not a licence for heavy retouching. The test is always whether the finished image still represents the property honestly.
Generally acceptable: Correcting exposure in a dark room.
Likely to mislead: Digitally adding a pool, deck or garden.
Generally acceptable: Correcting white balance and colour cast.
Likely to mislead: Removing a permanent structure or fixture.
Generally acceptable: Straightening vertical lines.
Likely to mislead: Erasing a neighbouring building or power line.
Generally acceptable: Standard HDR blending for window detail.
Likely to mislead: Replacing a window view with a better one.
Generally acceptable: Removing a bin left in frame on shoot day.
Likely to mislead: Making rooms look larger than they are.
Age of the image matters as well. A photograph taken years ago may no longer represent a property that has since deteriorated or been changed. Reusing old library images on a relisted property is a genuine compliance risk, not just a quality problem.
This is exactly why professional shoots are worth the small cost against a $110,000 exposure. Our real estate photography service in Sydney shoots to represent the property accurately, and our professional editing services stay inside the correction-only boundary rather than rebuilding the property in post.
Labelling is the simplest compliance tool available and it is badly underused. A photograph taken on the property being sold does not require labelling. A photograph taken nearby but not on the property, such as a beach, park, café strip or shopping village, should be marked as a location shot.
The reason is straightforward. Buyers cannot tell from a listing whether a beautiful water view is the view from the balcony or a photo taken two streets away. Without a label, they may reasonably assume it is the property’s own view.
Wording around images should be specific rather than atmospheric. NSW guidance prefers factual statements such as a distance in kilometres over vague phrases like “close to the beach” or “within walking distance of shops”. Vague location claims are treated as likely to mislead.
Virtual staging is not banned in NSW, but it must never be presented as reality. The risk is not the furniture itself. The risk is a buyer believing that what they see in the image is the actual current state of the property.
The safe approach is clear, visible disclosure on every digitally staged image. Labels such as “digitally staged” or “furniture is virtual” should sit on the image itself, not buried in the listing text. If the label is easy to miss, it is not doing its job.
There is a hard line between staging and alteration. Adding virtual furniture to an empty room is a presentation choice. Digitally renovating a kitchen, removing a wall, changing floor coverings or adding features the property does not have moves into misleading territory.
Physical styling avoids the disclosure problem completely, because the property genuinely presents that way at inspection. Many agents use a mix of both depending on the listing and the campaign budget. You can compare our virtual staging services against full property styling in Sydney to decide which suits a specific property.
Drone imagery sells property because it shows context, and context is exactly where misleading impressions form. An aerial shot communicates land, boundaries, outlook and proximity in a single frame. If any of those readings are wrong, the image is misleading even if nothing was edited.
Boundaries are the first issue to control. A wide aerial can easily suggest the property includes neighbouring land, a shared driveway, adjoining bushland or a reserve. Where boundary lines are drawn onto an aerial image, they need to be accurate rather than approximate.
Proximity is the second issue. An aerial angle that compresses distance can make a beach, station, school or park look far closer than it is. Pairing the image with a factual distance is safer than letting the composition make the claim.
Outlook is the third. If a drone hovers well above roof height and captures a water view, that view may not exist from any window in the house. Presenting a drone-height view as the property’s outlook is one of the clearer ways to create a false impression.
Careful flight planning and framing solve most of this at the shoot stage rather than in editing. Our aerial photography and videography service is flown with the listing’s boundaries in mind, and the same discipline applies to our building and construction drone photography for developers and builders.
A floor plan is a representation of the property, so it carries the same obligations as a photograph. Buyers use floor plans to judge whether furniture fits, whether a room works as a bedroom or study, and whether the layout suits their family. Errors in a plan can drive real purchasing decisions.
The common problems are predictable. Room dimensions that do not match the property, rooms labelled as bedrooms when they lack the features of one, omitted structures, and plans that quietly ignore a level or an outbuilding. Approximate plans should be marked as indicative and drawn to scale where possible.
Site plans need the same care. Where a plan shows land, easements, setbacks or a proposed subdivision, it should reflect what the title and approvals actually support. Development potential shown visually is still a representation about the use to which land may lawfully be put.
Accuracy at the measuring stage is the fix, not disclaimers at the bottom of the page. Our professional floor plan service is measured on site rather than estimated, and where a listing needs to show a future build we use clearly identified 3D visualisation and CGI instead of implying it already exists.
Listing copy is where enthusiasm quietly becomes a representation. A phrase written to sound warm can create a factual belief in a buyer’s mind. Once it does, it is treated as a claim you need to be able to stand behind.
Consider some common examples. “Walking distance to the beach” for a property two kilometres away up a steep hill. “Ocean views” where the water is visible from one corner of an upstairs window. “Brand new” for a property where only the kitchen was replaced.
Forward-looking claims deserve extra care. Statements about future value growth, rental returns, subdivision potential or development approval are predictions, and predictions still need a reasonable basis. Unsupported claims about what a property will earn or become are a recognised risk area.
The practical fix is to replace atmosphere with facts wherever a claim can be measured. “1.2 km to the beach” is safer and, for serious buyers, more persuasive than “moments from the sand”. Trained property writers do this instinctively, which is why our real estate copywriting service pairs naturally with the imagery shown in our Sydney listing portfolio.
Suburb misstatement is one of the oldest issues in property advertising and it is still live. Listing a property in a neighbouring, more desirable suburb than the one it sits in is a false representation about the location of land. It is directly caught by the Australian Consumer Law.
The temptation is understandable when a boundary runs down the middle of a street. The answer is to state the correct suburb and describe the genuine proximity separately. “Bordering” a suburb is a factual claim you can make honestly.
School catchments, transport links and amenity claims need the same treatment. Catchment boundaries change and are easy to get wrong on a recycled listing template. Verify before publishing rather than relying on what the last campaign said.
Location imagery should support the correct claim rather than blur it. If you are shooting local amenity for a campaign, label it as a location shot and keep the distance factual. We shoot across a wide range of Sydney service areas, and the same location-shot rule applies to every one of them, including our lifestyle and social content shoots.
Changing the platform does not change the obligation. A property advertisement on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn or YouTube is still a property advertisement. The same price rules, image rules and description rules apply.
The 2026 reforms make this explicit. The new price and Statement of Information requirements are drafted to cover advertisements published on websites, social media platforms and applications, and those sent by email or other electronic communication. Social is named, not implied.
The practical challenge is version control. A price guide changes, the portal listing is updated, and an Instagram Reel from three weeks ago still shows the old number. Under the one business day online update rule, that stale post is a compliance problem.
Video needs the same discipline as stills. Walkthrough footage, twilight sequences and drone reels all create impressions about the property, its light and its outlook. Consistent asset packs help here, which is why agencies use planned social media visual content and professional videography production rather than ad hoc phone footage.
Keep one master record of the current approved price, description and image set for each listing. Publish from that record only. When it changes, update every channel from the same source on the same day.
Keep a channel list per campaign so nothing is forgotten. Portals, agency website, agent profile pages, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, email database and any paid ads should all appear on it. If a channel is not on the list, it will not get updated.
Twilight photography is popular because it makes a home look warm and inviting. It is legitimate marketing when the image genuinely shows the property at dusk. The issue arises when a daytime photo is converted into a fake twilight image in post-production.
A composited sky, artificially lit windows and an invented glow are all changes to the appearance of the property. If the finished image no longer represents how the property looks, it falls foul of the rule against images that do not truthfully and fairly represent the property.
Shooting at the actual time of day removes the argument entirely. That is the approach behind our dusk and twilight photography service, and it is why our real estate photography packages schedule twilight sessions rather than manufacturing them afterwards.
Sales campaigns get most of the attention, but rental advertising has its own requirements. Rental listings must advertise a fixed rent amount rather than a range, and rent bidding rules restrict soliciting offers above the advertised amount. Property management teams need to apply this as carefully as sales teams apply price guides.
The image rules are identical. A rental listing cannot use photos that misrepresent the condition, size or outlook of the property, and old images of a since-degraded property are a problem. Prospective tenants are consumers too.
Rental listings are also where recycled media is most common, because turnover is high and budgets are tight. Refreshing photography after a renovation or a long tenancy protects the agency and improves enquiry quality. Our property photography services cover rental refresh shoots, and you can book a shoot online for a portfolio of properties at once.
Advertising a price below the recorded estimated selling price.
Using “offers over”, “offers above” or a plus sign after a figure.
Leaving an outdated price guide live after the estimate changed.
Digitally adding or removing property features in photographs.
Zooming a view to make it appear closer than it is.
Using location shots without labelling them.
Publishing virtual staging without visible disclosure.
Listing a property in the wrong suburb.
Vague location claims instead of measurable distances.
Floor plans with wrong dimensions or missing rooms.
Unsupported claims about growth, returns or development potential.
Failing to update social posts after a listing change.
Reusing photographs that no longer match the property.
Failing to disclose an agent’s ownership or relevant interest.
Most of these are process failures, not intentional misconduct. They happen when a campaign is assembled quickly from mixed sources under deadline pressure. A single approved media set per listing removes a surprising number of them.
If you want to see how a consistent, accurate media package looks in practice, browse our recent listing work or review the full range of property media services available to NSW agencies.
Run this checklist before any listing goes live, and again whenever the price or property changes. It takes a few minutes and covers the most common exposure points.
Licence holder and agency details are correct and visible.
Any ownership or relevant interest is disclosed.
Address and suburb are correct.
Advertised price is not below the estimated selling price.
Price range spread is within ten per cent.
No “offers over”, “offers above” or plus-sign pricing.
Price accounts for any rejected low offer or passed-in bid.
Statement of Information prepared, linked and displayed where required.
Photographs are current and represent the property today.
No features digitally added or removed.
No zoomed or enhanced views.
Location shots are labelled.
Virtual staging is clearly disclosed on the image.
Twilight images were shot at twilight.
Drone images do not misstate boundaries, outlook or distance.
Floor plan dimensions and room labels are accurate.
Distance and amenity claims are factual and measurable.
Growth, yield and development claims can be substantiated.
Portals, website, email and social all show the same information.
Superseded advertising has been updated or removed.
If most of your risk sits in imagery, that is worth addressing at the source. Talk to us about a compliant listing media package through our Sydney media enquiry page, or go straight to online shoot bookings.
Compliance and marketing performance pull in the same direction more often than agents expect. Accurate, well-lit, properly framed images do not need heavy post-production to look good. The properties that get over-edited are usually the ones that were shot poorly in the first place.
A professional shoot also creates a documented, dated media set. If a complaint is ever made about a listing image, being able to show when the photograph was taken and what was and was not adjusted is valuable. Phone photos and mixed-source images rarely offer that.
Consistency across the campaign is the third benefit. When photography, floor plan, video and social assets come from one production process, they tell the same story about the property. Mismatched assets are where contradictory impressions creep in.
Agencies running high listing volumes usually solve this with a standard media package per property type. You can see how we structure that across our real estate media services, and check availability across the Sydney regions we cover.
Advertising must be accurate and must not mislead or deceive. The Property and Stock Agents Act 2002, the Australian Consumer Law and the Fair Trading Act 1987 all apply. From 2026 these are backed by significantly higher penalties.
Underquoting is advertising or quoting a price lower than the agent’s own reasonable estimate of the likely selling price recorded in the agency agreement. It is illegal and, under the new regime, attracts a maximum court-imposed penalty of $110,000 or three times the agent’s commission, whichever is higher.
No. Vague price expressions such as “offers over” and “offers above” are prohibited, as are symbols that obscure a property’s estimated value, including adding a plus sign to a figure.
Technical correction such as adjusting lighting to compensate for poor conditions may be acceptable. Agents must not digitally add or remove features, must not modify images so they no longer truthfully represent the property, and must not zoom a view to make it appear closer.
Virtual staging is not prohibited, but it must be clearly disclosed so buyers understand the furniture is not real. Digitally altering the property itself, rather than adding furniture, is a different matter and is likely to mislead.
Yes. Aerial images must not create a false impression about boundaries, land included in the sale, outlook or distance to amenities. A view captured from drone height that cannot be seen from the property should not be presented as the property’s view.
No. Misstating the suburb is a false representation about the location of land under the Australian Consumer Law. Describe genuine proximity separately instead.
It is a new document, in a form approved by NSW Fair Trading, that agents selling residential property will need to prepare. It includes information about the property and the comparable sales the agent identified, and it must be included or linked in online advertisements, displayed at inspections, and provided on request within two business days.
Yes. The new requirements expressly cover websites, social media platforms, applications, email and other electronic communications. A post on Instagram is treated the same as a portal listing.
Once the later 2026 changes commence, online advertisements will generally need to be updated or removed within one business day to remain compliant. Other advertising must be updated as soon as practicable.
The regulator publishes detailed advertising guidelines for property agents in NSW covering photography, labelling and misleading representations. Always check the current version before finalising agency policy.
The 2026 reforms shift real estate advertising from a marketing exercise to a documented compliance process. Prices need evidence, images need honesty, and every channel needs to say the same thing on the same day. Agencies that build this into their listing workflow now will find the second stage of the reforms straightforward.
The good news is that compliant marketing is usually better marketing. Accurate images attract buyers who actually want the property, and realistic price guides produce cleaner campaigns with fewer wasted inspections. Trust is what converts enquiry into offers.
If your listing media needs a compliance-minded refresh, we can help. Explore our real estate photography and videography services or get a quote for your next campaign.
