Real estate agents aren’t evil. But they need stricter rules

April 10, 2026 — 5:00am

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If you’ve ever set foot in Australia’s property market, especially as a buyer, you can probably see why so many people think real estate agents work in the least ethical profession in the country.

Unfortunately, these agents are also largely unavoidable, almost always standing between us and one of life’s basic necessities: housing.

Here’s the thing, though: most of them aren’t inherently evil (even if they did rank at the bottom of a Governance Institute survey last year which rated a list of occupations by ethical behaviour).

And, like most people, real estate agents are probably largely driven by self-interest (although the profession does seem to attract a bigger-than-average share of people with a bigger-than-average willingness to lie or mislead).

Some real estate agents blatantly break the rules. But many are working within the law which, for years, has allowed behaviour that leads to buyers (and sometimes sellers) wasting more time and money than they need to.

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One of the big behavioural problems in recent years has been underquoting: where real estate agents give buyers false hope by whacking a price guide or price range on a property that is well below what the property ends up selling for.

That can sometimes be because a totally unexpected cashed-up bidder rocks up on auction day and seizes the moment.

But it’s clear from the ridiculously high frequency with which it happens that underquoting isn’t just the result of agents taking a stab in the dark: the knife far too often lands well short of the actual........

© The Sydney Morning Herald