Buyers Agent Sunshine Coast: The Checks to Run Before You Appoint One

The licence a Sunshine Coast buyer's agent actually holds

Queensland licences property agents under the Property Occupations Act 2014. The Act creates three licence categories: an auctioneer licence, a real estate agent licence and a resident letting agent licence, plus a limited property agent licence under section 28. None of them is a buyer's agent licence.

Here is what the real estate agent licence covers, quoted from section 26. "A real estate agent licence authorises the holder of the licence to perform the following activities as an agent for others for reward: (a) to buy, sell (other than by auction), exchange or let real property or interests in real property... (c) to negotiate for the buying, selling, exchanging, or letting of something mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b)."

Paragraphs (a) and (c) are the ones that let a licensee act for a buyer. So the words "buyer's agent" describe who a business works for and who pays it. They don't describe a separate qualification. Two Sunshine Coast agencies can hold the identical licence and be paid by completely different people.

Which is why the licence is only the first check, and the smallest one.

Check the licence yourself, free, before the first meeting

The Queensland Office of Fair Trading keeps a public register of every licensed property agent, salesperson and corporation in the state. You can search it online at no cost.

Two limits are worth knowing. The register is for information only and can't be used as evidence in legal proceedings. If you need a record that stands up, you pay for an extract.

When you search, the licensee name is the thing people skip. A trading name is not a licensee name, and the company on the website is not always the company on the contract. That's where mismatches show up.

FAA's own entry, so you can check it against ours: FAA Property Pty Ltd, licence 4220395, type Real Estate Agent, expiring 5 June 2027. A second licence exists in the group, FAA Enterprises Pty Ltd, 4214526, expiring 2 July 2027. Different companies. Don't read one as the other.

• The licence number, and that it's current, not expired.
• Whether the licensee name matches the company whose contract you're about to sign.
• The licence type. A resident letting agent licence is not a real estate agent licence.
• The expiry date against the length of the engagement you're considering.

The appointment form is where the money has to be written down

Before an agent can act for you at all, you have to appoint them. Section 102 says a property agent must not act for a client to perform a service unless the client first appoints them under section 102(2), or an appointment already in force is assigned to them under section 113. That appointment has to be in the approved form and comply with Division 2.

Section 104 sets out what the document must contain.

Read the fifth point again, because its scope is narrower than it looks. It covers benefits the agent may receive for expenses they incur while performing the service. It isn't a blanket duty to disclose every payment an agent receives from a third party. If you want to know whether an agent is paid by anyone other than you, ask that question directly and ask for the answer in writing.

The teeth are in section 112(4): "The appointment of a property agent or resident letting agent is ineffective from the time it is made if the appointment does not comply with section 104." An appointment that skips the fee detail fails from the moment it's made.

Practical version. Ask for the appointment document before you agree to anything, and read the fee section first. Any agent who won't hand it over early has told you something.

• A prominent statement telling you to get independent legal advice before you sign.
• Whether it's a single appointment or a continuing one.
• For each service, a statement of what that service is.
• The fees, charges and any commission payable for that service, and when they become payable.
• The expenses the agent is authorised to incur, including advertising and marketing expenses.
• The source and the estimated amount or value of any rebate, discount, commission or benefit the agent may receive for any expenses incurred in connection with performing the service.
• Any condition, limitation or restriction on how the service is performed.

Are buyer's agent fees tax deductible? What the ATO guide says

No, not against your rental income. The ATO's Rental properties 2026 guide puts buyer's agent fees in its list of non-deductible acquisition and disposal costs, alongside the purchase price, conveyancing, advertising and stamp duty on the transfer.

The guide names it directly: "fees of a buyer's agent you engage to find you a suitable rental property to purchase, including where the agent recommends a property manager free of charge as an optional or supplementary service". That page was last updated 30 May 2026.

Then it adds the part most summaries drop: "However, these costs may form part of the cost base of the property for CGT purposes."

The ATO's capital gains page fills that in. The cost base and reduced cost base include what you paid for the property plus some incidental costs of acquiring, holding and disposing of it, with legal fees, stamp duty and real estate agent commissions given as examples. It doesn't include amounts you have claimed or could claim as a tax deduction. Last updated 22 June 2026.

The ATO's own worked example shows the mechanics. Yusef and Marie bought a rental property for $170,000 in July 2025 and paid $350 in surveyor's fees and $750 in stamp duty. Neither amount was deductible against rental income. Both went into the cost base, taking it to $171,100.

For context on the size of the fee: Loan Market, in a piece published 5 February 2026, says a buyer's agent fee is generally between 1% and 3% of the property value, or a flat fee usually above $10,000, and that auction attendance may cost extra.

One more moving part, because it changes the maths on holding costs. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 26 June 2026. Schedule 2 limits negative gearing on residential property to new builds, applying from 1 July 2027, with an acquisition trigger of 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026. Properties held before that trigger are grandfathered, and current-year deductibility is unchanged. What counts as a new build is still in Treasury consultation, so nobody can tell you that part yet.

General information only. Tax gets applied to your situation, not to an average, so confirm your own position with a registered tax agent. Last reviewed 5 August 2026.

The one official Sunshine Coast number we can stand behind

The Queensland Valuer-General's 2026 statutory land valuation for Sunshine Coast Regional Council took effect on 1 October 2025. It valued 116,754 properties and recorded a 24% increase in land values since the previous revaluation issued in 2024.

The Valuer-General gave the reasons behind that movement.

Now the caveat most pages skip. A statutory land valuation is the unimproved value of the land, used for rating and land tax. It is not a house sale price. A 24% land movement doesn't tell you what a house standing on that land sold for, or what the next one will.

We don't have a verified Sunshine Coast median sale price to quote, so there isn't one on this page. The figures circulating on commercial blogs disagree with each other by hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you want a price answer, ask for recent comparable sales on the specific street you're looking at.

What FAA has on the ground, dated so you can test it: as at 5 August 2026, four properties listed for sale, all inside the Sunshine Coast local government area. Meridan Plains, Battery Hill, Nirimba and Caloundra West. That feed resyncs every 15 minutes, so check the live list rather than trusting this sentence.

• Interstate migration within the local government area.
• Ongoing demand for coastal and hinterland based lifestyles.
• Master planned communities supplying land to purchasers eligible for government incentives.

FAA Property, run through the same checklist

Same checks, applied to us, on the page that asked you to run them.

Here is the disclosure in the wording FAA already publishes. FAA Property earns a commission from builders and developers when a property purchase proceeds. The strategy session itself costs you nothing. Because we're paid by the supply side, you should weigh our recommendations with that in mind.

If that changes how you read the rest of this page, good. That's the reason for writing it down rather than leaving you to work it out.

What FAA does do: sources new-build, house-and-land and off-market investment property across South East Queensland, plans the strategy and the numbers around the purchase, then manages the property across the Sunshine Coast from the Maroochydore office. Suite 3-7, Level 5, Tower 2, 55 Plaza Parade, Maroochydore QLD 4558. Phone (07) 5327 3469.

• Licensed: yes. FAA Property Pty Ltd, Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence 4220395, type Real Estate Agent, expiring 5 June 2027.
• Licensed to act for buyers: yes, under section 26 of the Property Occupations Act 2014. There's no extra authorisation to hold, because Queensland doesn't have one.
• Paid by you: no.
• Independent of the seller side: no.
• Acting exclusively for the buyer: no.
• Local office: one, in Maroochydore. There's no FAA branch in Mooloolaba, Caloundra, Noosa or anywhere else on the Coast.