The confusion usually starts at an open home or an auction. The agent showing you through is friendly, knowledgeable and generous with information, and it is natural to assume some of that help is for you. It is not, and that is not a scandal, it is the structure of the job. A sales agent and a buyers agent work in the same transactions, often side by side, but they are engaged by opposite sides, paid by opposite sides, and their duties run to opposite sides. This article sets out what each role actually is, compares them directly, and explains why the difference has become more expensive to ignore for investors since the tax rules changed in May 2026.
What a sales agent actually does
A sales agent, also called a selling agent or listing agent, is engaged by the person selling the property. The vendor signs the agency agreement, the vendor pays the commission, and the agent's duty is to the vendor: market the property well, run the campaign, and get the vendor the best possible price and terms. That is not a criticism of selling agents, it is simply their job, and a good one does it with real skill. But it carries a consequence buyers routinely forget at exactly the moments it matters. The agent answering your questions at the inspection, suggesting what offer might secure the property, and calling you warmly after the auction passes in is working for the other side of your transaction. Everything they do for you is, structurally, in service of the price their client wants.
What a buyers agent actually does
A buyers agent is the same profession pointed the other way. The buyer signs the engagement, the buyer pays the fee, and the duty runs to the buyer alone: building the search thesis, screening out the wrong properties, negotiating the price down rather than up, and managing the purchase through to settlement. A genuine buyers agent is paid by the buyer, only by the buyer. I take nothing from the sell side, ever, and any agent worth engaging will happily put that in writing, because the moment an advisor takes developer commissions or referral fees from sellers, the buyer is no longer the client. The full job, stage by stage, is set out in what a buyers agent actually does for investors; this article is about the comparison with the role most buyers mistake for it.
Buyers agent vs sales agent, compared
The table compares the two roles as they are actually engaged, not as they appear at an open home.
| Sales agent | Buyers agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Who engages and pays them | The vendor, under a sales agency agreement, usually as commission on the sale | The buyer, under a buyer-side engagement, with a fee the buyer pays directly |
| Who their duty runs to | The vendor | The buyer |
| What the best outcome means | The highest price and strongest terms for the vendor | The right asset at the right price for the buyer |
| Off-market and pre-market stock | Holds it: selling agents decide who sees a property before it is listed | Reaches it through those same relationships; 60 to 70% of my purchases settle off-market or pre-market |
| Negotiation stance | Negotiates property every working day, always for the vendor | Negotiates for the buyer, priced from comparable evidence |
Why the distinction matters most for investors
For an owner-occupier, the cost of forgetting whose side the agent is on is usually measured in the purchase price. For an investor it goes further, because an investment purchase stands or falls on numbers the sales process never touches. The tax mechanics beneath a residential investment purchase changed in May 2026, and from 1 July 2027 they bite: for a property bought after 7:30pm on 12 May 2026, rental losses stop offsetting salary and instead carry forward in a pool, and the 50% CGT discount gives way to a cost base indexed to CPI. These are announced measures and remain subject to the passage of legislation; the full mechanism is set out in carry-forward rental losses explained.
Now ask who in the transaction is going to model that for you. A sales agent will not, and should not: their duty runs to the vendor, and modelling a buyer's post-2027 tax position has nothing to do with getting the vendor the best price. It is nobody's job to run the buyer's numbers unless the buyer has engaged someone whose job that is. That is the structural point of a buyers agent for an investor, and it is why the difference between these two roles is not industry trivia. The fee and the duty both sit on the buyer's side of the table, and that is the reason the buyer's modelling gets done at all.
Can one agent act as both
It is a fair question, and one of the most searched, because from the outside the two roles look like the same skill set. The answer starts from how agency works: an agent's duty runs to the client who engaged them, and in Australia an agent cannot properly represent both the vendor and the buyer in the same transaction, because the vendor's best price and the buyer's best price are the same number pulled in opposite directions. A firm can sell one property and help a different client buy another; one agent cannot honestly do both jobs inside the same deal. That conflict is precisely why a genuine buyers agent operates as a separate, buyer-only engagement rather than a dual role, and why the cleanest test of any agent you speak to is a single question: who pays you, and is it only me?
Ask who is working for you before you sign anything
The single question this whole article reduces to is the one worth putting to any agent in front of you, sales side or buyer side: who pays you, and is it only me? A strategy call is 30 minutes, and the property analysis and cash flow model are free on your strategy call, whether you engage me afterward or not.
Frequently asked questions
Is a buyers agent the same as a real estate agent?
They come from the same profession, and in most states operate under the same licensing system, but the engagement is opposite. When people say real estate agent they almost always mean a sales agent, engaged and paid by the vendor. A buyers agent is engaged and paid by the buyer, and a genuine one acts for buyers only, in every transaction, so the duty never has to be shared.
Who pays a buyers agent versus a sales agent?
The vendor pays the sales agent, usually as a commission on the sale price, which is why the sales agent's help costs a buyer nothing and is worth exactly what it costs. The buyer pays the buyers agent directly, as a fee agreed up front, and a genuine buyers agent is paid by the buyer, only by the buyer, with nothing from the sell side. What that fee actually is, city by city and structure by structure, is published in buyers agent fees in Australia.
Can I just negotiate with the sales agent myself instead of engaging a buyers agent?
You can, and most buyers do; what you cannot do is make the sales agent negotiate for you, because their duty and their commission both run to the vendor. Whether running the whole purchase yourself is the right call is a bigger question than negotiation alone, and it is covered honestly in both directions, including when doing it yourself genuinely makes sense, in buyers agent vs doing it yourself.
Does a buyers agent cost more than just dealing with the sales agent?
Dealing with the sales agent is free because the vendor is paying them, and that is exactly the problem: the help is priced into the other side of your transaction. A buyers agent's fee is visible, agreed before the search starts and, in my case, published. An overpayment is invisible and permanent, arriving silently inside the purchase price and staying there for every year you hold the asset. The published fee detail is in buyers agent fees in Australia.
