For more than a decade, the biggest line item in an Australian agency's marketing budget was also the least flexible. On 11 September 2026 that changed — and the operational consequences land squarely on how principals plan a campaign.
Important — not legal advice
This document is general information prepared by Listing Logic for discussion purposes only. It is not legal advice and must not be relied on as such. It does not take account of the terms of your own subscription, depth or sponsorship agreements, or your particular circumstances. Before acting — including renegotiating, downgrading or terminating any contract — obtain your own independent legal and commercial advice. Listing Logic is not a law firm and accepts no liability for any action taken on the basis of this material.
The ACCC accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from REA Group and realestate.com.au removing the contract clauses that required agencies to list every property they handled on the portal — and, in some cases, to pay for the more prominent, more expensive formats.
The headline is a competition win. The operational story is bigger: portal spend has just moved from a fixed annual commitment, intertwined with discretionary cash incentives, to something an agency can sequence — campaign by campaign, listing by listing — for the benefit of the consumer, whether seller or buyer.
What actually changed
Three contract families carried the clauses the regulator objected to.
- Subscription Agreements — in place since at least 2013, marketed as Flexi, Basic, Essentials and Pro. Some versions required every property for sale and for rent to appear on the portal.
- Depth Contracts — pre-commitments to upgrade, either across the whole book (All Depth) or a designated number of properties (Elect Depth).
- Sponsorship Agreements — since at least 2019, under Advantage+. Funding for training, events and marketing, with the highest-tier Depth Contract as an eligibility condition for REA to access more VPA and data.
From the commencement date, REA will not enter or enforce provisions requiring an agency to list all or the majority of its available properties as a condition of a subscription, and cannot attach tier commitments to sponsorship funding.
From 1 January 2027, any listing tier contract must offer the agency a choice to downgrade at least 25% of eligible sale listings and at least 25% of eligible rental listings to a lower tier, measured against eligible listings in the previous calendar half-year.
The undertaking runs three years, to 11 September 2029. REA does not share the ACCC's concerns but offered the undertaking to resolve them, and there is no admission of contravention.
Why re-sequencing is the real prize
A listing fee on a property portal is advertising spend. Until now, that spend behaved unlike any other media budget in the agency: committed in advance, across the whole book, for a year at a time and often attached to non-VPA cash incentives, like a net reduction of the fixed cost overheads of an office, if an office committed its marketing schedule to Audience Maximiser.
A 25% downgrade right converts a fixed commitment into a partially variable one. That single change unlocks four things agencies could not previously do.
01 — Shift budget across channels, not just tiers
Once portal depth stops being mandatory, it competes for budget on performance like everything else - Meta, search, video, direct mail, AI-surfaced discovery. For the first time, a vendor-paid marketing schedule can be optimised on evidence rather than drafted around a contractual floor.
02 — Give a complementary channel a real shot at a single listing
The ACCC's concern was pitched at the level of the individual property: the clauses hindered agencies from declining listing services for a specific property, and hindered competitors from competing listing by listing. Agencies and vendors were always free to list elsewhere as well - what they lacked was the ability to not buy on the incumbent for a given property. That is the freedom that has just arrived.
03 — Match depth to the property, not the contract
A hot, well-priced three-bedroom in a tight suburb does not need the same portal prominence as a stale prestige listing in its eleventh week. Under an all-depth commitment, both were funded identically. Now the marginal dollar can follow the properties where visibility actually moves the needle - for example, through direct agency-led digital marketing.
04 — Ability to leverage the Ray White network effect
The ACCC’s intervention against REA gives agencies greater freedom to choose where they advertise, creating an opportunity to make fuller use of their Network Data. By combining the network’s collective listing data, audiences and brand strength through direct digital channels, offices can build local visibility and generate enquiries while strengthening their own customer relationships. With restrictive listing requirements being removed, principals have greater flexibility to direct marketing investment towards channels that demonstrate value for their vendors and their business data strategy.
The heavy lifting
Flexibility is only valuable if you can act on it, and acting on it requires data most agencies do not currently hold in one place.
- Know your depth ROI by listing type, price band and suburb. A 25% downgrade right is a blunt instrument unless you can identify which 25%.
- Rebuild your vendor-paid marketing schedules. If your standard schedule assumes a fixed depth tier, it is now a negotiating position, not a given. Vendors will ask why.
- Re-read your subscription, depth and sponsorship paperwork before January. The downgrade obligation attaches to contracts; the value shows up when your next renewal reflects it.
- Set a measurement baseline now. You want a clean before-and-after on enquiry volume and cost per enquiry across tiers, so the first year of flexibility produces evidence rather than anecdote.
- Treat the freed budget as a portfolio, not a saving. The agencies that win here will not be the ones that spend less. They will be the ones who spend the same amount in a better order.
The wider signal
The remedy is instructive well beyond real estate. Rather than banning tier upgrades or minimum spend, the regulator extracted a quantified release valve — a percentage rather than a principle, which makes compliance measurable. Portfolio commitments, volume rebates and tier eligibility rules appear right across digital advertising. Australia's case-by-case approach, backed by section 87B undertakings enforceable in the Federal Court, is proving to be the faster instrument while a dedicated digital competition regime remains under consultation.
For agencies, though, the takeaway is simpler. The portal is still the largest venue in the category, and it will keep earning most of the budget. But the budget is finally yours to sequence.
Sources
“REA drops all-listing requirements on realestate.com.au after ACCC deal”, PPC Land, 14 September 2026. Primary documents: ACCC media release 106/26 and the section 87B undertaking given by REA Group Ltd and realestate.com.au Pty Ltd, accepted 11 September 2026.
Prepared by Listing Logic for agency principals. General information only - not legal advice. Obtain independent advice before acting on anything in this document.