Your agency's
first 30 days.

Most marketing plans for agents start with content calendars and Facebook posts. In late 2026 that's backwards. The rules for what a sale ad must say are changing in NSW and Victoria, and every template, portal default and boosted post you run will need to follow them.

In NSW, for agency agreements from 17 November 2026, every residential sale ad the agent arranges must show a price or price range that can't be below the estimated selling price. Ads can use a QR code that links to the price. From the same date, the maximum underquoting penalty becomes $110,000 or three times the commission, whichever is higher. A Statement of Information follows for agency agreements after 8 February 2027.

In Victoria, for auctions and fixed-date sales from 16 October 2026, the reserve must be published as a single figure at least 7 days before, and the Property Price Statement shown prominently in online ads. In Queensland, agents still can't give price guides for auction properties.

Fix the templates once, in week one, and every ad after that starts compliant. The detail by state is on the real estate advertising rules page.

Pick your state and the list changes to match. It remembers your ticks in this browser.

Go through every place a price line comes from: CRM ad templates, portal upload defaults, window cards, social post templates and email templates. Because NSW gives you 1 business day to update or remove a non-compliant online ad, name one person who checks each new listing on the day it goes live.

Set up the records while you're there. The NSW estimate has to be backed by comparables, given to the seller in writing with the evidence, and kept, along with written offers and rejections. If those records live in someone's head, the first audit will be painful.

Check photo rules too. NSW agents can't digitally add or remove features, zoom in to make a view look closer, and must label off-site photos 'location shot'. If AI editing tools are in your workflow, decide who reviews the output before it's uploaded.

Vendors look up an agent before the appraisal. Give every agent a page on your site with recent sales as text (suburb, method, date), the suburbs they work, genuine reviews and a photo. Take down anyone who's left.

Then check the agency's Google Business Profile: category, hours, phone and service areas. Google treats real estate agents as individual practitioners who can have their own profile, but one each, and not for support staff. Decide whether your agents will have one, and keep them consistent with the agency's.

Run every bio through the agent bio checker at the same time. 'No.1 agent' needs a measure, a place and a period behind it, or it's a claim you'd have to prove if the ACCC asked.

Write down the last three months: appraisal requests by source, appraisals done, listings signed. Most agencies count enquiries and stop there, which makes the cheapest source look like the best one.

Add a 'how they found us' field to the CRM, and keep the ad click ID when there is one. Google Ads can then import offline conversions using the click ID, with hashed lead details alongside it, so it learns which clicks became listings, not just which filled in a form.

Check consent while you're in there. Appraisal follow-up by email or SMS needs consent you can prove, your details and an unsubscribe actioned within 5 working days. A bought list of local homeowners doesn't come with your consent attached.

Now spend, small and focused. Pick one or two suburbs where you have recent sales to show, and run vendor ads there: appraisal searches on Google, and 'just sold' posts with local market updates on Facebook and Instagram. The Google Ads page covers which searches are worth paying for.

Ask every seller who settled this month for a review, and reply to the ones you get. The ACCC's rules apply: no fake reviews, no hiding negative ones, and any incentive offered whatever the review says, and disclosed.

On day 30, compare the week three numbers with the month just gone. If you still can't tell which source brought listings, give the tracking another month before the budget goes up.