Buyers agent fees in Australia 2026, and mine is $15,000

A buyers agent in Australia costs somewhere between $8,000 and $30,000 as a flat fee, or 1.5% to 3% of the purchase price plus GST. I charge $15,000 including GST for residential and SMSF purchases, structured as a $5,000 retainer and $10,000 on success, and I publish that number here so you can read it before you speak to me. Almost nobody else in this industry will.

That is the whole answer. The rest of this page is why the number is what it is, what it buys, how it compares city by city, and the five questions that tell you whether any fee is worth paying.

What I charge, exactly

Residential and SMSF purchases: $15,000 including GST. A $5,000 retainer to commit both sides and fund the search, then $10,000 on success. If I do not secure a property, the success component never exists.

Commercial and development sites: $5,000 plus 2% of the purchase price on success. Both components are inclusive of GST. Commercial deal sizes vary by an order of magnitude and the work scales with them, which is the one place a percentage is honest. The retainer keeps the search funded either way.

The strategy call is free, and it includes the property analysis and the cash flow model whether you engage me or not.

Every figure on this page is inclusive of GST, the percentage included. That is worth checking on any quote you compare it against, because percentage fees in this industry are conventionally quoted before GST, and a 2% quote is really 2.2% by the time it leaves your account.

The fee does not move by city. Fifteen thousand dollars is the same number in Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, or a regional market the data likes better, because the work is the same and the incentive should be too.

Detail by lane is on the residential, SMSF, commercial and development pages.

What buyers agents charge in Australia

Across the industry, full-service buyers agents charge one of two ways.

Percentage of purchase price, typically 1.5% to 3% plus GST. On an $800,000 property that is $12,000 to $24,000 before GST, so $13,200 to $26,400 in the money that actually leaves your account. On a $1.2 million property it is $19,800 to $39,600. The problem is structural, not moral: a percentage fee pays your agent more when you pay more. The incentive points the wrong way on the single number you hired them to fight.

Flat fee, typically $8,000 to $30,000 depending on the city, the brief and the level of service. Full search-to-settlement engagements in the capitals commonly land between $14,000 and $22,000.

Most firms take an upfront retainer of roughly 20% to 50% of the total, with the balance on success. A minority quote no number at all until you are on a sales call, which is itself a piece of information.

Here is the comparison that matters, on a single purchase price:

And the number that changes the comparison: on a $1.2 million purchase, the percentage agent's bill rises by roughly $8,800 to $13,200. Mine does not move.

Buyers agent fees by city

Fees track property prices, so the same service is quoted differently in different capitals. The published ranges sit roughly like this.

Sydney. The most expensive market in the country to buy in and to be represented in. Flat fees commonly $8,000 to $21,000, percentage engagements 1.5% to 3%. Because Sydney medians are the highest in Australia, a percentage fee here produces the largest absolute bills in the country.

Melbourne. Percentage engagements commonly 1.2% to 2.75%, with flat-fee firms clustering near the national average.

Brisbane. Flat fees commonly $6,000 to $18,000, or 1% to 2.7%.

Adelaide. Among the lowest percentage ranges in the country, commonly 1.5% to 2.4%, which reflects lower medians rather than less work.

Perth, the Gold Coast and the smaller capitals. Fewer firms publish figures at all. Where they do, the ranges typically sit between the Adelaide and Sydney bands.

Two things are worth taking from that list. The first is that the spread within any one city is wider than the difference between cities, so "what do buyers agents charge in Perth" is a less useful question than "what does this particular agent charge, and who else pays them". The second is that my $15,000 does not move across any row of it.

If you are buying interstate, that matters more than it looks. A percentage agent has a quiet financial preference for the more expensive city. I do not have one, which is why I can send you to a market you had not considered without it costing me anything.

What commercial buyers agents charge

Commercial and development engagements are the one place I use a percentage, and it is worth explaining why rather than asserting it.

Residential briefs cluster. Most sit between $500,000 and $1.5 million and the work inside that band is broadly the same: the same suburb analysis, the same due diligence, the same negotiation. Commercial does not cluster. A $600,000 strata suite and a $6 million industrial site are not variations on one job. The lease analysis, the tenant covenant, the outgoings reconciliation, the planning overlay and the site inspections all scale with the asset, and on a development site the feasibility work scales again.

So commercial and development sites are $5,000 plus 2% of the purchase price on success, both inclusive of GST. Industry percentage rates on commercial are commonly quoted between 1% and 3% before GST, so an inclusive 2% sits at the lower end of that band once you gross the others up, and the retainer is deliberately low because commercial searches run longer.

The commercial and development pages set out what the engagement covers. If you want the method applied at full scale rather than described, the Dry Creek project on the receipts page is my own money in the deal alongside two partners, and the reasoning is written out in full.

Buyers agent fees, explained

Fees break into three components almost everywhere in the industry.

An engagement fee or retainer, paid upfront, which commits both sides and funds the search.

A success fee, paid when the property is secured, which is where the bulk of the fee should sit because that is where the incentive belongs.

And occasionally add-on fees for auction bidding, extended searches or additional rounds of negotiation, which good agents include rather than itemise.

Compare all three together, on the same purchase price, and ask what happens to each one if no property is ever bought. A low headline fee with a non-refundable balance payable regardless of outcome is more expensive than a higher fee with the success component genuinely at risk.

What the fee actually buys

The fee is not a finder's charge. On a residential engagement it covers the market analysis across 15,000 or more suburbs, pocket-level scoring on 20 metrics, a cash flow model built on the post-May 2027 tax rules rather than the current ones, the search and shortlist, due diligence on the asset, the negotiation, contract review, and auction bidding where it comes to that.

The cash flow model is the part most worth checking on any quote you receive. From 1 July 2027, rental losses on most newly purchased established properties stop offsetting salary income. Those are announced measures subject to the passage of legislation, and an agent still modelling the pre-reform position is quoting you numbers your purchase will never see. Here is what changed.

The fee is the wrong number to optimise

Fifteen thousand dollars sounds like a lot until you price the alternative.

A buyer negotiating alone against a selling agent who negotiates for a living is not a fair contest, and the selling agent's fee is already priced into what you pay. You are in the transaction either way. The only question is whether anyone in it is working for you.

I would rather hand you a number than a compliment, and further down this page I tell you to ask any agent for settled results rather than testimonials. So take this one for the fact sitting inside it rather than the praise around it.

"This was my fourth property purchase in 15 years, and I was honestly hesitant about using a buyers agent again after a past experience. I'm glad I trusted the recommendation to work with Shayne…"

Sairaah Govindan Haridas. Residential engagements are delivered through Moove Property Buyers, so her review sits on the Moove profile. It is quoted in full, with the rest, on the receipts page.

What I can show you is settled purchases rather than averages. In Muswellbrook, New South Wales, a first investment property exchanged at $621,000, under budget, seven days from engagement. In Banksia Grove, Western Australia, an off-market house exchanged at $795,000 and the desktop valuation seven months later read $933,000. In Dry Creek, South Australia, a commercial site I bought with two partners and my own money went in at $3,850,000 in February 2022 and out at $4,750,000 in December 2023.

Individual results vary and none of that is a forecast of what any new purchase will do. It is a record. The full ledger, suburb by suburb across five states with the Google reviews quoted word for word, is on the receipts page.

The client who was quoted $20,000 somewhere else

Ben came to me having been quoted upwards of $20,000 by other firms, and he could not see the value at that price. Fair call. He already owned one high-yielding unit and the second property had to bring the combined portfolio close to cash flow neutral, which is a precise job, not an expensive one.

He engaged me at $15,000. We split the search between Cairns and Townsville with both markets running hot, and we missed a handful of properties, some drawing more than ten competing offers, because we would not chase the price. The one we took was in Burdell, Queensland: a four-bedroom house with a sitting tenancy below market rent, which is exactly the feature that scares off competition and creates negotiating room. It was secured below our own estimate, with the rental uplift already identified.

Less in fees, and a purchase under the number we had put on it ourselves. That story is on the receipts page with the rest.

The reverse case is on there too. Ramit arrived wanting a house over $1 million within an hour of Brisbane or Sydney. His actual goal was a three-property portfolio, and the numbers said the big purchase would strangle his borrowing capacity and push properties two and three back by years. We cut the budget to around $750,000 and bought in Idalia instead.

Now run the arithmetic on that conversation. At 2% plus GST, a percentage agent bills about $22,000 on the house Ramit wanted and about $16,500 on the house he needed. Talking him down cost that agent $5,500. Mine was $15,000 including GST either way, so it cost me nothing. That is not a claim about anybody's honesty. It is the reason the conversation was an easy one to have.

Five questions that expose a bad deal

Before you pay anyone a retainer, ask these. The answers matter more than the fee.

Who else pays you? The only acceptable answer is nobody. An agent taking referral fees, developer commissions or kickbacks from the sell side is not a buyers agent, they are a distribution channel. I take nothing from the sell side, ever.

What happens if you do not find a property? The success component should be genuinely at risk. A fee fully payable regardless of outcome is a consulting arrangement wearing a buyers agent badge.

Which tax rules are your cash flow projections built on? If the answer is the current rules and the purchase settles into the post-May 2027 regime, the model is describing a property that will not exist.

Will you tell me not to buy? Ask for an example. If every search in their history ended in a purchase, the search was theatre.

Can I see settled results rather than testimonials? Real purchases, with suburbs and numbers attached. A testimonial tells you someone was happy. A receipt tells you what happened.

Flat fee against percentage, settled

For residential purchases, flat fee wins and it is not close. Your agent should be indifferent to your purchase price and ferocious about lowering it.

For commercial, a modest success percentage is defensible, because deal sizes vary by an order of magnitude and so does the work. That is why my commercial structure is the one place a percentage appears.

Any arrangement where the buyer's advocate earns more when the buyer pays more deserves a hard look before signature. That is not a claim about anyone's honesty. It is a claim about arithmetic.

If you are weighing up whether the fee makes sense for your next purchase, start there rather than with the fee. The property analysis and cash flow model are free on your strategy call.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a buyers agent cost in Australia?

Full-service buyers agents typically charge either 1.5% to 3% of the purchase price plus GST, or a flat fee between $8,000 and $30,000 depending on the city and the level of service. My residential and SMSF fee is a flat $15,000 including GST: a $5,000 retainer and $10,000 on success.

What does a buyers advocate or a buyers agency cost?

The same as a buyers agent, because they are the same thing. Buyers advocate is the usual term in Victoria, buyers agent is standard in the other states, and buyers agency describes the firm rather than the person. All three mean a licensed professional engaged and paid by the buyer. Expect a flat fee in the $8,000 to $30,000 band or a percentage of 1.5% to 3% plus GST. Mine is $15,000 including GST for residential and SMSF, published rather than quoted on a call.

Do buyers agent fees change by city?

For most agents, yes. Published ranges run roughly $8,000 to $21,000 flat or 1.5% to 3% in Sydney, 1.2% to 2.75% in Melbourne, $6,000 to $18,000 or 1% to 2.7% in Brisbane, and 1.5% to 2.4% in Adelaide, which is among the lowest in the country. Perth, the Gold Coast and Canberra publish figures far less consistently. Those percentages are quoted before GST, so add ten per cent to compare them properly. My fee does not move by city and does not move with GST: $15,000 including GST for a residential or SMSF purchase in any of them.

What do commercial buyers agents charge?

Commercial engagements are usually quoted as a percentage of the purchase price, commonly 1% to 3% plus GST, because deal sizes and workload vary by an order of magnitude and a single flat number cannot cover both a strata suite and an industrial site. I charge $5,000 plus 2% of the purchase price on success for commercial and development, both inclusive of GST, with the low retainer reflecting how much longer commercial searches run.

Is a buyers agent fee tax deductible?

For an investment property, the fee generally forms part of the property's cost base for capital gains tax purposes rather than being immediately deductible. Treatment depends on your circumstances and your accountant should confirm it. This is general information, not tax advice.

Do buyers agents save you more than they cost?

Sometimes, and nobody can promise it. Be wary of anyone who does. Where the value comes from is negotiation, access to stock before competition prices it, and most of all not buying the wrong asset. One documented purchase: an off-market house in Banksia Grove, Western Australia, exchanged at $795,000, with a desktop valuation seven months later reading $933,000, on a $15,000 fee. That was a past result on one purchase, not a forecast for yours. More settled examples with suburbs and figures are on the results page, and individual results vary. The full comparison of paying a fee against running the purchase yourself is in buyers agent vs DIY.

What is the difference between a buyers agent and a real estate agent?

A real estate agent is paid by the seller to maximise the sale price. A buyers agent is paid by the buyer to do the opposite. One person cannot honestly do both jobs on the same transaction, which is why who pays the fee matters more than what the fee is.