Real Estate Marketing Online: What Actually Works in Australia

I'm Chris from Studio Slate. We built the website for Ashworth & Co, a family homebuilder that needed to stop competing on portals where every listing looks the same. This guide is for Australian real estate agents and principals who spend tens of thousands a year on realestate.com.au and Domain but own nothing from it. The numbers show there is a better way to build a pipeline, and it starts with assets you control.

The portal dependency problem

REA Group, which operates realestate.com.au, posted $1.67 billion in revenue in FY2025, up from $1.45 billion the year before. That is a 15% increase. Net profit hit $564 million, up 23%. The company's own filings attribute growth to "continued price hikes" on listing fees.

Where does that money come from? Agents and vendors.

A Premiere listing on realestate.com.au costs between $1,200 and $4,000+ depending on your postcode. In Cranbourne, agents report paying $2,500 per listing. In inner Melbourne and Sydney, listing costs of $3,000 to $6,000 are common when you add Domain on top. Fees increase 7-8% per year according to agents in Casey, Melbourne.

One LJ Hooker principal described the maths: "Our average marketing campaign is nearly $4,500. But our commission is only like $8,000 to $10,000. The advertising is nearly 45%." That is almost half of the commission going straight to listing fees.

And the fees are not transparent. Agents in the same suburb report different pricing. The system is postcode-based but not uniformly so, and agencies are locked into 12-month subscription tiers that determine their per-listing rates.

The ACCC noticed. In May 2025, REA Group disclosed it had received a Section 155 notice from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, requiring the company to provide information as part of an investigation into potential anti-competitive behaviour. The ACCC stated it was "concerned to ensure there is strong competition in the important real estate sector."

The fundamental problem is not just cost. It is ownership. Every listing you pay for on a portal builds their brand, their audience data, and their platform. When the campaign ends, you are left with nothing. The lead went to realestate.com.au first, saw three competing agents alongside your listing, and formed their impression of you inside someone else's product.

How home buyers and sellers actually search in 2026

The portal dependency assumption is that buyers only look on realestate.com.au and Domain. The data tells a more nuanced story.

Yes, portals are dominant for property browsing. 12.88 million Australians visited realestate.com.au in January 2026 according to Ipsos iris data, and 15.1 million Australians visited homes and property websites in total. REA's own data claims 9 in 10 residential property seekers use their platform.

But the buyer and seller journey is not just portal browsing.

According to LJ Hooker's 2025 survey of 1,000 Australians, 60% use agency websites when looking for properties to buy or rent. 33% of Gen Z and 25% of Gen Y said social media ads influenced their property search. Only 21% of all respondents had considered selling their property without an agent.

REA Group's own 2024 Property Seeker Survey of 13,400 Australians revealed how sellers find their agents:

Nearly half of first-time sellers find their agent online. That is not on realestate.com.au listings. That is through Google search, social media, and agency websites. These are the channels agents can own.

The search volume data from DataForSEO confirms the opportunity:

8,100 people searching "real estate agent near me" every month. These are sellers, buyers, and landlords looking for an agent to work with. Portals do not own this search. Google does.

Building your own website

Portals show listings. Your website sells your agency.

The distinction matters. On realestate.com.au, every listing looks roughly the same. Your brand sits alongside competing agents. The buyer's loyalty is to the portal, not to you. On your own website, you control the narrative: your track record, your suburb expertise, your team, your sold properties.

60% of Australians already use agency websites when searching for properties. If someone Googles your agency name and finds a portal profile instead of your own website, the portal owns that relationship.

An effective real estate agency website needs:

Suburb authority pages. Not one page that says "we sell across Sydney." Individual pages for each suburb you specialise in, with recent sales data, median prices, local insights, and your track record in that area. When someone searches "real estate agent Paddington" or "sell house Mosman," Google needs content on your site that matches. This is how you compete with portals for suburb-level searches, because portals dominate broad buyer searches but have weak presence in vendor-intent queries like "best agent to sell in [suburb]."

Agent profile pages. People list with agents, not logos. Each agent in your office should have a dedicated page with their sales history, current listings, reviews, a photo, and contact details. Use Person and RealEstateAgent schema markup so Google understands the relationship between your agents and your agency.

Recent sales and property listings. Your listing pages should be the best version of each property online. You are the source of truth. The portals are syndicating your information. If your own listing page has more photos, a better description, floor plans, and suburb context than the portal version, Google has reason to rank it.

Speed and mobile performance. 53% of mobile visitors abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load according to Google. Real estate searches skew heavily mobile. A WordPress site running Elementor with high-resolution property images will struggle to meet Core Web Vitals thresholds. Only 43% of WordPress sites pass Core Web Vitals on mobile.

Google Business Profile for agents

Google Business Profile (GBP) is free. It takes 20 minutes to set up. And for real estate agents, it is one of the most underutilised marketing channels available.

The industry data from BrightLocal's 2026 benchmarks shows construction and real estate businesses average 580 GBP views per month with 18 reviews and a 4.35 average rating. That is lower than hospitality (2,520 views, 142 reviews) but the intent behind those views is far more valuable. Someone viewing a restaurant profile might spend $50. Someone viewing a real estate agent profile might list a $1 million property.

Key GBP statistics for agents:

84% of GBP views come from people who did not search your agency name. They searched "real estate agent [suburb]" and Google showed them your profile. If your profile is incomplete, has no reviews, and no recent activity, Google will show a competitor instead.

What a complete agent GBP profile looks like:

• Verified with correct agency name, address, and phone number
• Business category set to "Real estate agency" plus subcategories like "Real estate appraiser" where relevant
• Service areas covering every suburb you actively work in
• Photos uploaded regularly: recent sales, sold stickers, team at open homes, office shots
• Google Posts published weekly: new listings, recent sales, market updates
• Reviews collected consistently, with every review receiving a response

The review velocity matters more than the total count. 73% of consumers only pay attention to reviews from the past month. An agency with 200 reviews but nothing in the last 90 days looks abandoned. An agency with 40 reviews that adds one or two per week looks active and trustworthy.

Property management companies have the highest GBP verification rate of any industry at 83%. Sales agencies should be matching that number. If you have multiple offices, each one needs its own verified GBP linked to the corresponding office page on your website.

SEO for real estate: owning suburb searches

The strategic insight for real estate agents is that portals dominate buyer-side searches ("3 bedroom house Thornbury") but have almost no presence in vendor-intent and agent-selection searches ("best real estate agent Thornbury," "sell my house Thornbury," "property appraisal Thornbury").

Those vendor-intent searches are where your commission comes from. And they are wide open.

Google determines local rankings based on three factors it has publicly documented: relevance, distance, and prominence.

Relevance means your website and GBP content match what the searcher typed. A generic "about us" page does not rank for "real estate agent Bondi." A dedicated Bondi page with your sales history, median prices, recent results, and local market commentary does.

Distance is geographic proximity to the searcher. You cannot control this, but suburb-specific pages extend your effective radius. Google uses your website content and GBP service areas to understand where you operate.

Prominence is how well-known your business is online. Reviews, backlinks, directory citations, and website authority all contribute. Businesses with 50+ Google reviews are 266% more likely to appear in the Local Pack than businesses with fewer than 10.

The practical SEO playbook for real estate agents:

1. Build a suburb page for every area you sell in. Include recent sales, median price data, local amenities, school zones, and your team's track record there. Update quarterly with fresh data.
2. Create content around vendor questions. "How much is my house worth in [suburb]," "best time to sell in [suburb]," "auction vs private sale [city]." These are searches portals do not own.
3. Get listed on Australian directories. Yellow Pages, True Local, Yelp, LocalSearch, StartLocal, and your local chamber of commerce. Consistent name, address, and phone number across every listing.
4. Collect reviews from every completed sale and property management client. One review per week puts you at 50+ in a year. That is more than double the real estate industry average of 18 per location.
5. Keep your website fast. A 0.1-second improvement in load time increases conversions by 8.4% according to a Deloitte/Google study. Property pages with large images need proper optimisation, lazy loading, and modern image formats.

One Melbourne SEO firm estimates that agents visible in Google organic results receive 2.8x more vendor enquiries per month than agents relying on portals alone, with cost per enquiry dropping from $200-$400 (portal) to $15-$35 (organic).

Social media: what actually works for agents

Social media for real estate agents is not about going viral. It is about being present in the local digital conversation.

According to View.com.au's Path to Purchase 2025 research, 58% of Gen Z and 33% of Millennials listed social media as a top source of property information. They use it to discover listings, research agents, and compare suburbs.

LJ Hooker's survey found that 33% of Gen Z use social media ads as part of their property search, compared to 25% of Gen Y and just 5% of Baby Boomers.

The channels that produce results for Australian agents:

Instagram and Facebook. Property photos, walkthrough Reels, sold posts, and local market updates. These are the bread and butter. The algorithm favours video, so short walkthrough clips of new listings and sold celebrations outperform static images. Post consistently (3-5 times per week) rather than in bursts.

Local Facebook groups. Suburb and community groups are where a large portion of recommendations happen. Being the agent who answers property questions, shares useful local information, and shows up as a known name in the community has high conversion. This is the digital equivalent of door-knocking.

Meta advertising for listings. A paid advertising analysis from Sod.au found that when Meta (Facebook and Instagram) advertising was paused on a property campaign while all other channels remained active, total lead volume dropped by over 80%. Their recommendation: Meta creates demand, Google captures intent, portals convert ready buyers. The three work together, and agents who run Meta alongside portals see better results than portals alone.

LinkedIn. Not for residential buyer leads, but for building credibility with commercial clients, developers, and high-net-worth sellers. Principal agents who publish market commentary and thought leadership on LinkedIn build a professional brand that differentiates them from competitors.

Budget allocation: portals plus owned channels

This is not about abandoning portals. Realestate.com.au reaches 12.88 million Australians monthly. That audience is real. The argument is about allocation, not elimination.

An agency spending $40,000+ per year on portal fees alone, with zero investment in owned channels, has a fragile pipeline. Every dollar goes to a platform that increases its prices annually, places competitors alongside your listings, and gives you nothing when the subscription ends.

A more resilient approach:

Year 1 is an investment. By Year 2, the website is generating organic traffic, Google reviews are compounding, suburb pages are ranking, and the cost per lead from owned channels drops while portal costs continue rising.

The agents who will thrive in the next five years are not the ones spending the most on Premiere listings. They are the ones who built a brand that vendors seek out directly, bypassing the portal comparison entirely.

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What to do this week

If you have read this far and want to start, here is the priority order:

1. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. Free. 20 minutes. Verify your office, add all service suburbs, upload 10+ photos of recent sales and your team.
2. Ask your last 10 successful vendors and landlords for a Google review. Text them the direct link. Most will do it if you ask within a week of settlement.
3. Audit your own Google results. Search your agency name and your personal name. If a portal profile ranks above your own website (or you have no website), that is the problem to fix.
4. Get listed on 5-10 Australian directories. Yellow Pages, True Local, Yelp, LocalSearch, StartLocal, local chamber of commerce. Identical name, address, and phone number on every listing.
5. When you are ready, invest in a proper agency website. One that loads fast on mobile, has suburb authority pages for every area you sell in, agent profiles that rank for your agents' names, and a design that reflects the quality of your service.

Steps 1 through 4 cost nothing and can be done in a weekend. Step 5 is the investment that turns all of this into a compounding lead engine.

The portals are not going away. They serve a purpose and they reach an audience you cannot replicate independently. But treating them as your only marketing channel, at an increasing cost, while owning nothing from the investment, is a strategic risk that gets worse every year. The best agents are building both: portals for immediate listing reach, owned channels for long-term brand equity.

Sources

• REA Group Annual Report 2025 - $1.67B revenue, 15% growth, 23% net profit increase
• ABC News: ACCC probes REA Group - Investigation into pricing, listing costs $1,200-$4,000+, vendor cost examples
• Star Community News: Casey agents slam ad costs - $2,500 Cranbourne listings, 7-8% annual increases, 45% of commission to ads
• Mediaweek: Ipsos iris property data Jan 2026 - 15.1M Australians on property sites, 12.88M on REA
• REA Group: Property Seeker Survey 2024 - 13,400 respondents, seller/buyer journey data, 44-week average buying journey
• Real Estate Business: How Australians buy/sell property 2025 - LJ Hooker survey, 60% use agency websites, social media by generation
• Real Estate Business: What buyers want 2025 - View.com.au Path to Purchase, 58% of Gen Z use social media for property research
• Australian Property Update: Buyer behaviour shift - REA survey insights, 55% want price clarity, 44-week buying journey
• Searchlab: Google Business Profile Statistics 2026 - 1,260 avg views, 84% discovery, 42% Local Pack CTR, review benchmarks
• Search Endurance: GBP Statistics 2026 - Industry benchmarks, 83% property management verification rate
• SEO Melbourne: Real estate SEO guide - 2.8x more vendor enquiries, portal vs SEO cost comparison
• Sod.au: Property paid ads update Feb 2026 - Meta paused = 80% lead volume drop, full-funnel recommendation
• realestate.com.au: FY26 Subscription Brochure - Basic/Essentials/Pro tiers, Pro at $799/month
• realestate.com.au: Audience Insights - 11.5M monthly visitors, 9 in 10 seekers claim
• Google: How local results are determined - Relevance, distance, prominence ranking factors
• DataForSEO - Australian keyword search volume and CPC data
• Google / Think with Google - 53% mobile abandonment at 3+ seconds
• Deloitte / Google: Milliseconds Make Millions - 0.1s speed improvement = 8.4% more conversions
• Search Engine Journal: CMS CWV Rankings - WordPress 43% CWV pass rate on mobile