What It Costs to Sell a House in Queensland

Start here, because it changes how you read every other number on this page and on every competing one.

Maximum commission rates for residential property in Queensland were deregulated in 2014 by the Property Occupations Act 2014. Before that there was a cap. Since then there has been nothing: no maximum, no prescribed rate, and no REIQ rate.

The REIQ is direct with its own members about the consequence. Because no standard rate exists, describing one to a client as standard or prescribed can amount to misleading and deceptive conduct.

So when an agent quotes you a figure and calls it the going rate, they are describing their own price. Averages published by comparison services are useful for orientation and are genuinely informative about the market, but they are not a benchmark you are entitled to and not a rate anyone has to match. Commission in Queensland is negotiated, one appointment at a time.

With that established, published market data is worth knowing before you sit down to negotiate.

OpenAgent's Queensland figures, last updated on 31 August 2026, put the state average commission at 2.57%. Brisbane sits lower at roughly 2.41%, and Cairns higher at around 3.85%. That spread is not a quality difference. Thinner markets and longer distances cost more to service, and regional rates run above metropolitan ones across the country.

On a $900,000 Sunshine Coast sale, the difference between 2.2% and 2.8% is $5,400. That is a real amount of money and it is worth a conversation, but it is smaller than the difference a good or bad campaign makes to the sale price, which is the trade you are actually being asked to make.

Watch the structure as well as the number. A flat percentage of the whole price and a tiered rate that steps up above a threshold can produce very different bills on the same sale, and the tiered version is designed to reward a result above expectations.

Every guide currently ranking for this question was written before, or has not been revised since, the change that took effect on 1 August 2025.

Queensland's seller disclosure scheme now requires a seller to give the buyer a completed Form 2 disclosure statement and a set of prescribed certificates before the buyer signs. There is no government fee for the form. There is a real cost in the searches and certificates behind it.

What that costs depends on what the property is rather than what it is worth. A freestanding house on a plain title needs a title search and a registered plan. A lot in a community titles scheme also needs the community management statement and a body corporate certificate, and that certificate is usually both the largest single item and the slowest to arrive. A property with a pool needs its safety certificate.

It is not a large number next to commission. It is a real one, it is now compulsory rather than optional, and a seller budgeting from a guide written in 2024 will not have it in their total.

Conveyancing starts from around $500 and rises with the complexity of the sale. A straightforward house on a single title sits at the bottom of that range; a scheme lot, a deceased estate or a tenanted sale sits above it. Since the disclosure regime landed, many sellers now engage their solicitor earlier, because the same person is assembling the disclosure pack and drafting the contract.

A marketing campaign starts at roughly $2,000 and moves with the type and duration of the campaign. This is the line item with the widest genuine range, because it covers everything from a portal listing and a photographer through to video, floor plans, print and a signboard.

Marketing is also the item most worth interrogating, because it is normally payable whether or not the property sells, while commission is not. An agent proposing a large campaign is asking you to carry that risk.

Then there is the mortgage side. If there is a loan on the property, expect a discharge fee from the lender, and check whether a fixed-rate loan carries a break cost, because that one is occasionally larger than everything else on this page put together.

If the property is an investment rather than your home, the largest cost of selling may not appear on any invoice at all.

Capital gains tax is assessed on the gain, not the sale price, and it is paid through your tax return rather than at settlement. It does not show up in an agent's cost estimate, which is exactly why sellers are caught by it.

The timing question matters more than it used to. The 50% CGT discount is being replaced for gains accruing from 1 July 2027, and a property held either side of that date has a gain that straddles two different sets of rules. Our capital gains tax changes page explains what is changing and what is not.

Selling costs themselves are not deductible against your income in the year you sell. Agent commission, marketing, conveyancing and the disclosure searches are added to the cost base instead, which reduces the capital gain. Keep the invoices.