PROPERTY NOISE OPINION: New South Wales is moving to require advertised residential property prices or price ranges. New Zealand should be asking why buyers here still have to make contact just to establish whether a home is within reach.
The photographs are beautiful. The location looks right. The description promises an opportunity you cannot afford to miss.
But can you actually afford it?
That essential question is sometimes left unanswered by a New Zealand property advertisement.
“By negotiation.” “Price on application.” “Contact agent.”
Buyers are invited to enquire, attend and become interested before discovering whether their budget bears any relationship to the seller’s expectations.
Across the Tasman, New South Wales has announced a significant change. From 17 November 2026, its new requirements will include a selling price or price range in residential property advertisements.
The announcement puts a straightforward question in front of New Zealand’s real estate industry:
If agents can provide meaningful price guidance in NSW, why should Kiwi buyers continue guessing?
WHAT NSW IS CHANGING
The NSW Government’s announcement sets out several measures taking effect from November 17:
- Residential advertisements must include a selling price or price range.
- Online advertising must be updated within one business day when its displayed pricing no longer complies.
- Agents must use the three most comparable sales when setting or revising an estimated selling price.
- Records must explain how that estimate was determined.
- Underquoting penalties increase to as much as A$110,000 or three times the agent’s commission, whichever is greater.
A further requirement begins on 8 February 2027: a Statement of Information explaining the estimate and supporting comparable sales must accompany online advertising and be available at inspections.
These are announced NSW changes. They do not introduce equivalent requirements in New Zealand.
NEW ZEALAND ALREADY EXPECTS HONEST PRICING
New Zealand does have rules governing price representations.
The Real Estate Authority says information given to prospective purchasers about a property’s price range must be accurate. The bottom of a negotiating range must represent an amount the vendor would seriously consider accepting.
Its guidance warns that advertising could be misleading where an agent knows the seller will only consider a higher figure than the bottom of the advertised range.
The professional conduct rules also require written appraisals that realistically reflect current market conditions and are supported by comparable information. An advertised price must reflect the expectations agreed with the client.
The distinction is important: requiring honest price information when it is provided is different from requiring a useful price indication in every advertisement.
New Zealand’s consumer guidance still describes price on application as one way a property sold by negotiation may be advertised.
Our argument is that buyers deserve a more informative starting point.
“BY NEGOTIATION” DESCRIBES A PROCESS—NOT A BUDGET
A buyer with an A$900,000 budget browsing in Sydney, or an NZ$900,000 budget browsing in Wellington, needs to know which properties warrant further investigation.
An invitation to negotiate does little to answer that question.
Consider a hypothetical buyer who spends a weekend visiting a home before learning the seller expects substantially more than they can borrow. Nobody has necessarily broken a rule. But time has still been wasted.
The agent has gained an enquiry. The buyer has gained an answer that could have appeared in the listing.
Property Noise raised this problem in No Price, No Thanks: Should Every NZ Property Listing Show a Price?
The NSW announcement gives that debate a concrete policy example to examine.
MORE ENQUIRIES DO NOT NECESSARILY MEAN BETTER BUYERS
Property marketing should help connect a seller with people who have a realistic chance of purchasing.
An unpriced campaign may generate questions about affordability. That activity is not the same as qualified demand.
A vendor reviewing a marketing report should be able to ask:
How many enquirers can realistically purchase at the expected price? How many attended simply to discover what the seller wanted? What did the campaign reveal about genuine demand?
These questions do not establish that unpriced campaigns perform poorly. They challenge the assumption that a larger enquiry count automatically represents better marketing.
A price guide could reduce some enquiries while making the remaining conversations more relevant.
Whether that happens in practice is something agencies could measure.
THE SELLER’S OBJECTION DESERVES A FAIR HEARING
There is a legitimate concern on the other side.
A seller may worry that a published figure becomes an anchor. Buyers might focus on the bottom of a range, while an unusual property could attract someone prepared to pay substantially more.
Agents also encounter homes with limited directly comparable sales. Establishing a reliable estimate can be difficult.
Those are reasons to design sensible requirements, including a clear process for updating guidance and explaining uncertainty.
They are not a convincing reason to assume the buyer should receive no useful indication at all.
Price guidance can communicate expectations while leaving room for competition and negotiation.
The objective should be a credible starting point, rather than a promise about the eventual result.
A PRICE GUIDE IS DIFFERENT FROM AN AUCTION RESERVE
This debate becomes confused when several different figures are treated as interchangeable.
An appraisal is a professional estimate. An asking price communicates the seller’s advertised expectation. An auction reserve is the minimum at which the seller authorises the property to sell under the auction process.
In New Zealand, Settled’s guidance explains that the auction reserve is confidential to the seller, agent and auctioneer.
Requiring an advertised price guide would therefore raise a different policy question from requiring public disclosure of the reserve.
New Zealand could debate one without automatically adopting the other.
The NSW announcement should prompt a careful discussion of the information buyers need, rather than an assumption that every pricing mechanism must become public.
A SALE ABOVE THE GUIDE DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY PROVE UNDERQUOTING
A credible guide cannot predict every buyer’s behaviour.
Competition can produce an unexpectedly strong result. Purchasers may value features differently, and the available alternatives can influence what they will pay.
The important questions are what the agent reasonably understood when advertising, whether the representation was supported, and whether guidance was updated as relevant information changed.
A high sale price alone does not answer those questions.
Equally, an agent should not be able to defend an unrealistic starting figure simply by pointing to the uncertainty of auctions.
Transparent pricing needs both evidence and accountability.
WHAT A BETTER NZ SYSTEM COULD LOOK LIKE
Property Noise believes New Zealand should consider a requirement for a meaningful advertised price or evidence-based range on residential listings.
A workable proposal should address:
- The evidence supporting the guide.
- How the guide relates to the seller’s actual expectations.
- How quickly advertisements must change when expectations change.
- How unusual properties with limited comparable sales are handled.
- How compliance would be monitored and enforced.
A token figure would achieve little. Neither would an enormous range that tells a purchaser almost nothing.
The Commerce Commission has previously warned against using a misleadingly low property price to attract buyers when the seller would not consider that figure. Any new approach would need to strengthen useful disclosure rather than create another way to obscure it.
BUYERS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO EARN BASIC PRICE INFORMATION
An agent’s expertise should help a buyer understand a property’s features, limitations and position in the market.
Answering “roughly how much?” should be the beginning of that service, rather than an obstacle placed before it.
Sellers deserve strong representation. Buyers deserve accurate information early enough to decide whether to proceed.
Those interests can coexist.
The NSW changes have yet to take effect, so their practical results remain to be seen. But the principle is worth debating now.
New Zealand buyers should be able to assess whether a home is within reach before they rearrange their weekend around it.
Should every residential listing carry a meaningful price guide—or is withholding the price a legitimate part of selling?
*Property Noise opinion,