“Contact agent”, “offers over”, “auction”. Four reasons a listing hides its price in Queensland and South Australia, and what each one means for you as the buyer.
Most listings without a price are not going to auction. On those, the missing number is a decision somebody made, and there are three usual reasons for it.
They have not settled on what they will accept. The campaign is the research: the enquiry and the offers tell them what the number should be.
A real number would stop the enquiry. No number keeps the inspections coming, in the hope that someone falls for it before they check the sales.
Nothing like it has sold nearby in months, so it is genuinely hard to price. This is where buyers overpay by the most, because there is no recent sale to argue with.
This is the one case where the missing price is the law rather than the vendor, and the rules differ between Queensland and South Australia.
If a residential property is to be, may be or is being sold by auction, the selling agent and the auctioneer must not give you a price guide. They also cannot tell you the reserve, or an amount they think would be a successful bid. The only people they can tell are those acting for the seller.
Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld), ss 214(2) and 216(2)
The same section covers private sales too. If the seller has told the agent not to disclose their price, the agent cannot give you a price guide either. So on a Queensland listing marked “contact agent”, asking the agent for a number may get you nothing at all, and that is the agent following the law.
Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld), s 216(3)
South Australian law sets out how a price can be quoted. It must be a single figure, unqualified by words or symbols, or a range of two figures. The bottom of the range cannot be lower than the higher of two numbers in the sales agency agreement: the agent's estimate of the selling price, and the price the vendor is seeking or will accept. The top cannot exceed 110 per cent of the bottom. Breaching it carries a maximum penalty of $20,000 or a year's imprisonment.
Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994 (SA), ss 24A(1) and 24A(2)
At auction there is a second rule. The reserve cannot be set above 110 per cent of the vendor's selling price in the sales agency agreement, at any point before or during the auction.
Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994 (SA), s 24J(1)(ba)
Now look at what a range actually describes. The bottom is anchored to the seller's floor, or the agent's estimate if that is higher. The top is capped ten per cent above it. The legislation governs what the agent is allowed to say, not what the property is allowed to fetch.
So a quoted range tells you roughly the floor plus ten per cent. It tells you nothing whatsoever about the ceiling.
Which is why properties can clear the top of the range, and why buyers who treat the top of the range as their budget keep losing. The range was never a prediction. It is a disclosure about the seller, read by buyers as a forecast about the market.
What it cannot tell you is what this particular property is worth. That takes comparable sales, and it is the work we do before you make an offer.
Treat the missing price as information. Work out which of the four reasons applies before you spend a second Saturday on the property, because each one changes how you should approach it.
Then find your own number. Pull the recent settled sales of genuinely comparable properties nearby, adjust for what is different about this one, and read the building and pest report for anything that changes the figure. Set that number before the auction or before your first offer, not after the campaign has had a few weeks to work on you.
And in South Australia, do not treat the top of a quoted range as your budget. It is ten per cent above the floor in the agency agreement, which is a statement about the sale, not the property.
Buying in South Australia? See our Adelaide buyers agent page. Buying in South East Queensland? See our Brisbane buyers agent page. Or see what our services cost.
General information only, not legal or financial advice. Legislative references are to the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) and the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994 (SA) as in force on 12 October 2026, from the Queensland and South Australian legislation registers. Check the current versions before relying on them, and get advice on your own circumstances.
On a free strategy call we look at the listing you are weighing up and talk through how we would price it.