21 Years in Real Estate. I've Never Seen the Rulebook Do This Much Damage

I'm going to be fairly raw about this.

After 21 years in real estate, I've never been more concerned about the direction we're taking our industry, or what we're expecting the people working in it to do.

And before anyone jumps to conclusions, let me make a few things perfectly clear.

Underquoting has no place in real estate. You can quote me on that.

Do I think the penalties for deliberate misconduct are all over the place across different states? Absolutely.

First-home buyers. Do they deserve protection, accurate information and transparency when making what will likely be the biggest financial commitment of their lives? Absolutely. You can quote me on that, too.

Homeowners. Are they going through one of the biggest emotional roller coasters of their lives? Of course they are. They're not simply selling four walls and a roof. They're selling a home, a history, and sometimes decades of memories that nobody else could possibly put a price on.

Do I think their interests deserve protecting just as much as the buyer's? You bet I do.

Tenants and landlords. Do they deserve protection, fairness and transparency? One hundred per cent.

Everybody has the right to enter a property transaction knowing they're being treated ethically, professionally and fairly.

I don't think anyone working in real estate should have a problem with that.

But here's where I do have a problem.

Real estate agents have copped an enormous amount of criticism over the years. Our credibility has taken a battering, and public trust in our profession is hardly where any of us would like it to be.

Quite frankly, our reputation is already in the toilet.

And my concern is that, with the direction some of these regulations are taking us, we're about to be flushed straight out to sea.

Not necessarily because agents are doing the wrong thing, but because we're being asked to operate under increasingly complicated and sometimes contradictory rules that differ from state to state.

And the people left trying to explain those inconsistencies to consumers are the very people whose credibility we're supposedly trying to rebuild.

Is it any wonder some professionals are questioning whether they want to stay in the industry?

Victoria, I really feel for you

I find myself spending more time researching legislative changes affecting Victorian real estate than those of every other Australian state combined.

And that's coming from someone who runs a national real estate media company.

But it's not just the volume of legislation that concerns me.

It's whether some of the people developing these policies genuinely understand how real estate works.

I've spent 21 years in the industry, and for much of that time, the traditional four-week auction campaign was a significant part of my job.

And I'm certainly not alone.

There are thousands of agents who've spent decades sitting at vendors' kitchen tables, having the conversations that come with taking someone's most valuable asset to market.

We know what happens in week one, week two, week three and week four.

We also know the buyer journey.

The initial inspections, the contract reviews, building and pest reports, finance discussions and the second or third inspection with Uncle Fred, who sold real estate 20 years ago and apparently knows everything about property.

We know when genuine interest starts getting serious.

And we know that the final seven days of an auction campaign can completely change a seller's expectations.

I could go through the entire four-week process, but I won't. Most people reading this know exactly what I'm talking about.

Which is why I find Victoria's new auction reserve price laws so difficult to understand.

Blind Freddie could have seen this coming

Under the new Victorian requirements, a seller's reserve price must be publicly disclosed at least seven days before auction.

And if that published reserve changes before auction day, whether it goes up or down, the seven-day disclosure period starts again.

Think about that.

You've spent three weeks marketing a property.

The seller publishes a reserve with seven days to go.

Then, in the final week, the buyers get serious, feedback changes and the owner decides their original expectations were a little ambitious.

Something that has happened in auction campaigns for decades.

But now, if they formally lower their published reserve before auction, the seven-day period starts again.

Potentially postponing the entire auction.

Yes, sellers can respond to bidding on auction day without automatically triggering that waiting period. I understand that distinction.

But that doesn't change the fundamental issue.

We're asking sellers to publicly commit to a figure before some of the most important market feedback has even arrived.

How does that help the buyer, the seller or the agent?

Real Estate Today has been reporting on these concerns since Victoria first proposed mandatory reserve disclosure in November 2025.

We followed that with our examination of the seven-day rule and its potential consequences.

And now we're reporting on Melbourne auction volumes falling by a third in the first week under the new requirements.

I'm not suggesting legislation is solely responsible for that decline. The market has plenty of other influences.

But I do think Blind Freddie could have seen the potential problems coming.

From conversations I've had with Victorian agents and networks, I suspect some will simply reconsider running auctions altogether.

And if that's the outcome of a reform designed to improve transparency, what exactly have we achieved?

Real estate was never going to be perfect

Here's something I think policymakers need to appreciate.

Real estate is never going to be a perfect industry.

Because we're dealing with two sides of one of the most emotional transactions people will ever make.

Think about a first-home buyer.

They've spent years saving, sacrificing and working towards owning something of their own.

Naturally, they want to pay as little as possible.

I understand that. I've been a first-home buyer myself.

In fact, I paid the asking price for my first home because I really wanted it.

Now consider the seller.

They might have spent 40 years in that home.

Forty years of Christmas mornings, birthdays, family dinners, children growing up and thousands of little moments nobody outside those four walls could ever understand.

To them, it's not just a property.

It's their home.

And naturally, they want the best possible price.

So who's right?

The buyer who sees value at $900,000?

Or the seller who believes it's worth $1 million?

Neither is necessarily wrong.

They're looking at the same property through two completely different sets of eyes.

Personally, I believe a professional valuation is about as close as we can get to an objective, evidence-based assessment of market value.

But even that doesn't tell us precisely what somebody will ultimately pay.

The role of a good agent is to navigate those competing expectations honestly and professionally.

And legislation needs to recognise that reality rather than assume every transaction can be managed according to a perfectly predictable formula.

Punish the wrongdoing, not the entire industry

If we're serious about underquoting, let's get serious about the consequences.

In April, the Federal Court ordered the former operator of Ray White Oakleigh to pay $600,000 over misleading price advertising involving nine properties and commission arrangements that created incentives to lower vendors' reserves.

Then consider Josh Tesolin, who received a ten-year disqualification following NSW Fair Trading findings of serious misconduct affecting more than 100 property transactions.

Financial penalties were reported at $33,000 across Tesolin and his company.

Now, let's put that into perspective.

Tesolin had previously been reported as generating more than $9 million in commissions in a single financial year.

That figure is reported commission income, not a finding that all those earnings resulted from misconduct.

But you can understand why people might question whether a $33,000 financial penalty is a sufficient deterrent for someone operating at that level.

I've heard agents react to that amount with disbelief. Some have joked that someone earning those kinds of commissions could make the fine back in an hour.

Now, I acknowledge that a ten-year disqualification is a substantial consequence, and one I support where serious misconduct has been established.

But if we're going to tackle this properly, shouldn't penalties also reflect the financial benefits obtained through proven wrongdoing?

Where consumers have suffered demonstrable losses, shouldn't appropriate compensation or restitution be part of the conversation?

I understand different jurisdictions have different laws and penalty limits.

Perhaps that's part of what needs reviewing.

My point is simple. Identify the people deliberately doing the wrong thing. Impose consequences that genuinely deter misconduct. And where the conduct warrants it, remove their ability to practise.

Surely that's a better use of our efforts than continually introducing blanket requirements that risk making transactions harder for the thousands of agents who are genuinely trying to do the right thing.

One industry. Three different approaches.

Now consider what's happening across Australia.

In Victoria, sellers must publish their auction reserve seven days before the event.

In Queensland, agents are prohibited from providing price guides for auction properties.

And New South Wales has legislated further reforms requiring advertised price information, with commencement expected later in 2026.

Three different approaches to essentially the same transaction.

A buyer in Brisbane wants transparency.

So does a buyer in Melbourne.

And so does a buyer in Sydney.

They're all trying to achieve the same thing: purchase a property with accurate information and confidence in the process.

I appreciate property regulation is largely a state responsibility.

But surely we can ask whether such fundamentally different approaches are genuinely helping consumers.

How can information be prohibited in one state and mandatory in another?

How are national networks supposed to establish consistent training and compliance systems?

And how does an agent explain these differences to consumers while trying to rebuild confidence in the profession?

What the hell are we doing to our industry?

We're asking for guidance, not loopholes

Here's another issue that doesn't receive nearly enough attention.

As a media company, we're constantly reaching out to regulatory bodies seeking clarification on legislative changes.

Not because we're looking for loopholes.

Because we want to get it right.

You ask a straightforward question.

You're referred to an Act.

You read the Act, seek clarification about how it applies in practice, and you're directed straight back to the same legislation.

I'm sorry, but that's not helpful.

I'm contacting you because I want the correct information.

If I could confidently interpret every provision myself, I probably wouldn't be calling.

And I think there's something fundamentally wrong when professionals struggle to obtain definitive practical guidance from the bodies administering the rules, yet can face substantial penalties for interpreting those rules incorrectly.

I don't expect every policymaker to have spent 21 years in real estate.

But if you don't have that practical experience, then work with the people who do.

Listen to the agents running auction campaigns.

Listen to property managers dealing with tenants and landlords.

Listen to the business owners who are responsible for making these policies work in the real world.

Not simply as a consultation exercise.

As a genuine part of developing the rules.

Consumer protection should protect everyone

We recently published Catherine Rogers' opinion piece, Real Estate in 2026: Why It Feels Like I'm Studying for a Law Degree.

I think that headline perfectly captures how many professionals are feeling.

I understand what regulators are trying to achieve, and I support the intention.

Buyers deserve transparency. Sellers deserve fairness. Tenants deserve safe homes. Landlords deserve clear rights and obligations.

And agents who deliberately mislead people deserve serious consequences.

But you cannot protect one side of a transaction by creating unnecessary risks for the other, then expect the agent caught in the middle to somehow make it all work.

That's not how real estate works.

After 21 years in the industry, I don't pretend to have every answer.

But I do know that good regulation should make the industry better, not simply more difficult to operate in.

It should be developed with the people who understand the realities of buying, selling and managing property.

And it should recognise that no amount of legislation will ever remove the human emotions involved.

Victoria, I genuinely feel for you.

And to the rest of Australia, I'd suggest we pay close attention.

Because if we keep introducing rules without properly considering their practical consequences, I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.

Are we genuinely making real estate more transparent and trustworthy, or are we making it harder for good agents to do the right thing?

I'd genuinely like to hear what you think.

Nic Fren is the founder of Bespoke Media Group and has spent 21 years working in the Australian real estate industry. The views expressed are his own.