Real estate commission in Queensland is typically charged as a percentage of the final sale price, commonly in the 2% to 3% range depending on the agency and region, plus GST. On top of that percentage, most agency agreements also pass through a separate marketing budget (often called a VPA — vendor-paid advertisement) and, for auction campaigns, an auctioneer's fee.
Worked example
Take a home selling for $720,000 at a 2.75% commission rate:
- Commission: approximately $19,800
- Marketing/VPA: commonly $3,000–$8,000, charged regardless of whether the property sells
- Auctioneer's fee (if applicable): commonly $400–$800
Total cost to the seller: often $23,000–$29,000 on a $720,000 sale — before GST is added to the commission component.
What that fee is actually paying for
Commission compensates an agency for marketing, negotiation, buyer qualification, inspection management, and administration through to settlement. None of that work disappears under a flat-fee model — it's simply priced differently: a fixed fee rather than a fee that scales with the sale price.
Why percentage-based commission scales oddly
The actual marketing and administrative work involved in selling a $500,000 unit and a $1.5 million house is broadly similar — the portal listing, the photography shoot, and the inspection process don't triple in effort because the price triples. A percentage fee means the price of the service scales with the property's value rather than with the actual work involved, which is the core argument for a flat-fee alternative.
What a flat-fee model changes — and doesn't
A flat-fee listing (commonly a few hundred to under $1,000, all-inclusive) still requires the property to be listed by a licensed agency, still runs through the same contract and conveyancing process, and still involves genuine marketing and buyer management. What changes is that the fee is fixed regardless of the sale price, so a seller of a $1.5 million property doesn't pay proportionally more for essentially the same service as a seller of a $500,000 property.
Where the real trade-off is
The honest trade-off with a flat-fee model isn't legal risk — it's that you (the seller) typically do more of the day-to-day coordination yourself, or pay per-visit for a licensed agent to attend inspections, rather than having one person manage the entire campaign end-to-end by default. For sellers comfortable with some hands-on involvement, that trade clearly favours the flat fee. For sellers who want to be fully hands-off from day one, it's a genuine consideration.