What is reverse real estate?

Queensland capped agent commissions until 1 December 2014 at 5% of the first $18,000 of the sale price plus 2.5% of the balance (Property Agents and Motor Dealers Regulation 2001, sch 1A, carrying forward the scale set by the Auctioneers and Agents Regulations 1986). On the 1995 price that is $3,625, and most agents charged the maximum. The Property Occupations Act 2014 removed the cap, and Queensland was the only state that had one. There is no statutory ceiling today; 2–2.5% is the typical Australian range (source: realestate.com.au), so $27,800 is 2.5% of the current figure, and many sellers pay more once listing and marketing fees are added. The 1995 price is the average median house price across the eight capital cities that year (source: Abelson & Chung long-run series); the current figure is the mean price of all residential dwellings nationally as at the March 2026 quarter (source: Australian Bureau of Statistics). These are different measures — a transaction median for capital-city houses against a stock mean for all dwellings — so the comparison indicates the scale of the change rather than a like-for-like figure. The two commission figures are worked out differently because the rules were: the 1995 one is the capped scale applied to that price, the current one is 2.5% of the current price. The "$20,000 or more" above is the low end of the same sum — 2% of the current figure is $22,200.