41220 – Choosing a Selling Method | Australian Property Network™

41220 — Choosing a Selling Method

Overview

Australian vendors typically choose between four methods of sale: auction, private treaty, expressions of interest (EOI) and tender. Each creates a different negotiating dynamic between vendor, agent and buyer, and each suits different property types, market conditions and vendor priorities. None is universally “better” — the right choice depends on how easy the property is to price by comparable sales, how much the vendor values a hard settlement date versus flexibility, and how the local market is running at the time of sale.

This entry compares the four methods on their genuine trade-offs, and separately covers a matter that touches all of them: the law governing how a property’s likely price is advertised to buyers before they decide whether to inspect it, negotiate or bid. Several Australian states and territories have introduced specific “underquoting” or price-guide disclosure legislation in response to long-running complaints that advertised price guides were being set unrealistically low to manufacture buyer interest; others rely only on general consumer law. Section 4 below sets out the current position, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

Scope & Boundaries

This entry covers:

Auction, private treaty, expressions of interest and tender as methods of sale, and the genuine trade-offs between them.
State and territory underquoting and price-guide disclosure law as it applies to advertising a property for sale, regardless of method.

This entry does not cover:

Pre-sale presentation, repairs and staging → addressed in 41210 — Preparing a Property for Sale.
Selecting an agent, listing agreement types and commission → addressed in 41230 — Choosing & Working with an Agent.
Marketing channels, portal listing tiers, photography and staging cost-benefit → addressed in 41240 — Marketing & Staging.
The buyer’s side of making an offer and negotiating, and cooling-off rights, which mirror the vendor-side dynamics described here → addressed in 41170 — Making an Offer & Negotiation.
Statutory vendor disclosure documents → addressed in 41180 — Conveyancing, Contract Review & Inspections.

Key Concepts

Auction

A public sale at a fixed date and time where buyers make open, competing bids and the highest bidder (above any reserve) purchases the property immediately and unconditionally, generally without a cooling-off period. Its main advantage is competitive tension: a genuine contest between motivated buyers can push the price above what a single negotiated offer might achieve, and bidding is transparent, so the outcome visibly reflects market demand on the day. Its main trade-off is the hard date — if buyer interest is thin, the auction can pass in publicly, which itself affects a property’s perceived value in subsequent negotiation.

Private Treaty

The most common method of sale in Australia: the property is listed with an asking price or price guide, and interested buyers submit offers that the vendor and agent negotiate, typically subject to conditions (finance, building and pest inspection, or a cooling-off period, depending on the state). Its advantage is flexibility — the vendor can negotiate on price, settlement timing and conditions with one buyer at a time, and there is no requirement to sell by a fixed date. Its trade-off is that it relies more heavily on the agent’s negotiating skill and market read, since there is no public bidding process to establish a visible ceiling on price.

Expressions of Interest (EOI)

Buyers are invited to submit an offer — often with proposed price, settlement terms and any conditions — by a set closing date, without seeing other buyers’ offers. The vendor then negotiates with, or accepts, the offer they consider best (not necessarily the highest price, since settlement terms and conditions matter too). EOI suits properties that are genuinely hard to price by comparable sales — unique, prestige, rural or commercial-style residential property — because it lets the market itself set the value rather than relying on an agent’s estimate drawn from comparable sales that may not exist.

Tender

Similar to EOI in that buyers submit a sealed, confidential offer by a closing date, but a tender is typically presented as a more binding and formal process, with less scope for the vendor to negotiate further with a bidder after submissions close. Like EOI, tender is used mainly for unique or hard-to-price properties where no clear market comparable exists to anchor a price guide.

Underquoting

Advertising or otherwise representing a property’s likely selling price at a figure the agent knows, or should reasonably know, is below a genuine estimate of what the property is likely to sell for — typically done to attract a larger pool of buyers to an auction or campaign. It is distinct from a property simply selling above its price guide, which can happen legitimately through genuine competitive demand; underquoting specifically concerns whether the guide was a genuine estimate when it was given.

Price Guide / Statement of Information

The figure or range an agent advertises as the likely selling price, and, in states with a dedicated regime, a formal document (such as Victoria’s Statement of Information or NSW’s disclosure requirements under the Property and Stock Agents Act) setting out the estimate, the comparable sales used to reach it, and median price data for the suburb. See Section 4 for how this is regulated, and how significantly it differs, across states and territories.

Regulatory & Legal Framework

Underquoting regulation is not uniform across Australia. New South Wales and Victoria operate the most developed, dedicated regimes, each requiring a documented, evidence-based price estimate and a formal disclosure document, with specific penalties for non-compliance. Queensland regulates most tightly at auction specifically, by banning price guides for auction properties outright rather than regulating what a price guide must contain. South Australia constrains the width of an advertised price range under general land agents legislation. Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory do not currently have a dedicated underquoting statute of the NSW/Victorian kind, and rely instead on the general prohibition on misleading or deceptive conduct in the Australian Consumer Law, applied through each jurisdiction’s real estate agent licensing and conduct laws. This is a genuinely uneven landscape, and vendors and buyers should not assume a NSW- or Victoria-style protection exists elsewhere unless it is confirmed below.

State/Territory	Underquoting Regime	Key Provisions
New South Wales	Dedicated regime under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 and Secretary’s underquoting guidelines.	Agent must give a reasonable, evidence-based estimated selling price in the agency agreement; an advertised price range cannot span more than 10% between its low and high figures; agents cannot advertise below their estimate or use terms such as “offers above”/”offers over” with a price; estimates must be kept current and advertising updated when they change. Penalties include penalty infringement notices of $2,200, court-imposed fines (NSW Fair Trading cites a current maximum of $22,000, with the NSW Government having announced legislation to raise this to $110,000 or three times the agent’s commission, whichever is greater — confirm commencement before relying on the higher figure), disciplinary action against the agent’s licence, and forfeiture of commission on the sale.
Victoria	Dedicated regime under the Estate Agents Act 1980.	Agent must set an “estimated selling price” based on at least three genuinely comparable sales, and cannot advertise below it. A Statement of Information must be prepared, displayed at inspections, published with online advertising and given to a buyer within two business days of request, showing an indicative selling price (a single figure or a range no more than 10% wide) alongside the comparable sales and the suburb’s median price. Qualifying words such as “offers above” or “from” are banned, and advertised pricing must be updated within one business day if the estimate changes. Penalties exceed 240 penalty units (over $48,000) and can include forfeiture of the agent’s full commission on the sale.
Queensland	No general price-guide-content regime; a specific statutory ban on price guides at auction.	Under the Property Occupations Act 2014 (ss 214 and 216), a real estate agent must not disclose a property’s reserve price, or any figure the agent considers likely to produce a successful or acceptable auction bid, before or during an auction campaign — in practice this means no price guide is given for auction listings at all. Maximum penalty for breach is 540 penalty units. For private treaty and other non-auction sales, Queensland relies on the general prohibition on misleading or deceptive conduct in the Australian Consumer Law rather than a dedicated price-guide-content regime of the NSW/Victorian kind.
Western Australia	NIL RETURN — no dedicated underquoting statute independently confirmed as of 29 August 2026.	Agents are bound by the Real Estate and Business Agents Act 1978 and the Real Estate and Business Agents and Sales Representatives Code of Conduct 2016, which require agents to act with honesty, due care and diligence and prohibit misleading representations about likely sale price, and by the Australian Consumer Law’s general misleading-conduct provisions. No WA-specific price-range-width rule or mandatory Statement-of-Information-style disclosure document equivalent to NSW or Victoria was found. Complaints are handled by Consumer Protection WA under the general conduct framework.
South Australia	Dedicated price-range constraint under the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994.	An advertised price range’s upper figure cannot exceed the lower figure by more than 10%, and an agent must not advertise a property below the vendor’s authorised selling price or a reasonable estimate. Qualifying terms such as “plus/+” attached to a single price, or vague bands such as “mid $400s”, are restricted. Breaches can attract fines reported up to $20,000 or up to one year’s imprisonment per breach. Confirm current penalty levels against the Act before relying on the figure.
Tasmania	NIL RETURN — no dedicated underquoting/price-guide regime independently confirmed as of 29 August 2026.	Real estate agents are regulated under the Property Agents and Land Transactions Act 2016, administered by the Property Agents Board of Tasmania and Consumer, Building and Occupational Services (CBOS), which prohibit an agent from knowingly making a false or misleading representation. No Tasmania-specific price-guide-content rule (a 10%-range cap or a mandatory disclosure statement) was found; protection against underquoting rests on the general misleading-conduct provisions of the Australian Consumer Law as applied through agents’ conduct obligations.
Northern Territory	NIL RETURN — no dedicated underquoting/price-guide regime independently confirmed as of 29 August 2026.	Real estate agents are licensed under the Agents Licensing Act 1979 and subject to the general conduct oversight of the Agents Licensing Board and NT Consumer Affairs. A false or misleading price representation can be pursued as a breach of licensing conduct obligations and of the Australian Consumer Law, but no NT-specific price-guide-content rule equivalent to NSW, Victoria or South Australia was found.
Australian Capital Territory	NIL RETURN for a dedicated underquoting regime — confirmed as the most permissive jurisdiction on this point as of 29 August 2026.	Real estate agents are regulated under the Agents Act 2003, which makes it an offence to publish an advertisement or give price information the agent knows is false or misleading, or is careless as to its accuracy — a general conduct standard, not a price-guide-content regime. The ACT has no 10%-range cap and no mandatory disclosure-statement equivalent to NSW or Victoria, and a reserve price may be set on the day of auction itself, meaning an initial price guide can differ materially from the eventual reserve without breaching ACT-specific law. Enforcement of the general misleading-conduct standard rests with Access Canberra.

Table current as at 29 August 2026. Underquoting law is an active reform area in several states — NSW penalty increases and further guideline changes have been flagged for commencement in 2026 and beyond — and figures above should be checked against the primary sources cited in Section 6 before being relied upon for a specific transaction.