Auctions and price guides in Queensland

Queensland does not regulate the auction price guide; it bans it. It is illegal for a seller or their agent to give a buyer a price guide for a property going to auction, and the buyer forms a view from the recorded sales. On the day, every bidder is registered, vendor bids stop at the reserve and must be announced, and the winner signs immediately with no cooling-off.

What a price guide may say

For an auction property, nothing. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance is that a seller or agent cannot give a price guide because they cannot know how high the bidding will go. Portals that sort listings by price carry a prescribed statement that the property is being sold by auction or without a price, so no guide can be provided, and that any price bracket is a website filter.

With the seller's approval an auctioneer may hand over a comparative market analysis, a document showing what similar properties have sold for in the same area. The sales in it are the useful part.

For a private treaty sale the guide is a marketing choice, and offers over means the vendor's floor.

Underquoting

No stand-alone underquoting offence is stated here; the controls described are general. Giving buyers a false impression about the price a seller will accept is what the Office of Fair Trading calls bait advertising, and a false or misleading representation about the sale of land is an offence under the Australian Consumer Law. The reference point is the seller's minimum selling price on the Form 6 appointment under the Property Occupations Act 2014: if the agent knows that figure is wrong, the representation is false or misleading. The Office of Fair Trading treats an agent advertising a property for less than the seller's minimum price on the Form 6 as a false or misleading representation. The section numbers are not stated here.

The Office of Fair Trading enforces them; the buying process page has the complaints path. Penalty amounts are not stated here.

Reforms in train

No reform to Queensland's auction or price-guide rules was found in the official-domain results for this page. The change that has commenced is on the contract side: the seller disclosure scheme under the Property Law Act 2023, in force from 1 August 2025, covered on the cooling-off and contracts page. A change to the auction rules would appear on the Office of Fair Trading's auction industry page.

On auction day

Registration. Every bidder registers with the auctioneer before bidding, giving a name and address and evidence of identity such as a driver licence or passport, and receives a numbered bidder's card. Only bids from registered bidders are accepted, and the register is kept for at least 5 years.

Vendor bids. The auctioneer may accept a bid from the seller or the seller's agent, but only up to the reserve, and must tell the other bidders it is the seller's. An announced vendor bid tells the room a reserve has been set and not yet reached. Once bidding reaches the reserve any further seller bid is a false bid; false and dummy bids are illegal.

The reserve and passing in. The reserve is not disclosed. If bidding stops below it the property is passed in, and negotiation usually follows with the highest bidder. A registered bidder who signs a private treaty contract within 2 business days of that failed auction gets no cooling-off period.

The contract and the deposit. The successful bidder signs the contract immediately, with no cooling-off period; the Office of Fair Trading warns of very serious legal consequences for a buyer who cannot settle on time. The deposit on the day is set by the contract; no convention is stated here. Finance, the building and pest inspection and the solicitor's read of the contract and disclosure documents happen before the day; none can be a condition afterwards.

Reading a guide against the sales

At auction there is no guide; at private treaty there is a marketing guide. Either way, a campaign figure is commonly read against recorded comparable sales of similar type, land or internal size, condition and date, which together support a fair-value range; the figure then sits under, within or above that range. Bidders commonly fix a ceiling from the range before the auction rather than during the bidding.