‘Gobsmacked’: The worst Sydney suburbs for auction price guide blowouts

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Sydney is plagued by widespread property underquoting by real estate agents, with new data revealing hotspots in the inner west and the eastern suburbs.

Houses in Alexandria were sold for 10 per cent or more above their listing price 86 per cent of the time, according to unpublished data from Homer App. In Camperdown, the rate was 83 per cent, followed by Marrickville (76 per cent), Double Bay (73 per cent) and Stanmore (71 per cent).

Despite months of revelations by this masthead’s Bidding Blind investigation, only 10 postcodes in greater Sydney, mostly on the Central Coast, recorded no sales of 10 per cent or more above the agent’s guide in the 12 months to November 5, 2025, the Homer data shows.

These latest figures follow an extensive investigation over the past 18 months by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, analysing more than 36,000 auction campaigns in Sydney and Melbourne that uncovered an extraordinary level of misinformation and deception facing buyers.

Apartment pricing was better across the 170 postcodes with five or more sales in the Homer App dataset. However, in most of the inner west, Bondi, Randwick, Sans Souci, Balmain and Double Bay, unit listings were regularly unreliable.

Property research and tracking platform HomerApp chief executive Henry Pedersen said they collect every sales listing in the country, with their data showing price issues across the city.

“The numbers don’t lie, auctions are highly problematic and in their current format support unscrupulous behaviour,” Pedersen said. “Sadly, it is the rule, not the exception, that properties are priced far below their sale price.”

Avoiding certain agents or agencies as a buyer is not an option, as they have the listings. Pedersen advised buyers to focus on knowing as much as they can about the agent and the market in that area.

“If they have a pattern of selling wildly above their guide prices, factor it in and make the call on if you think you are genuinely a chance - wishful thinking won’t get you the result. Unfortunately, that lesson takes most buyers months to comprehend.”

Missed out

First-home buyer Paul Boustani, 46, works in human resources at a large company.

He started looking for a place between Ashfield and Alexandria in the city’s inner west nine months ago.

“Prices were just literally escalating every week or two that I was looking. I’d see something at what I thought was my price range, and then it would escalate by $100,000 by the time I got into a pre-auction bid,” Boustani said.

His budget was $850,000, but places guided at $750,000 were going beyond that.

“I missed out on two pre-auction bids, and then the worst experience was having to go to an auction even though I had help,” he said.

Going further west made a difference, but price guides were still overshot, he said, before finally settling on a home in Ashfield.

SQM Research Managing Director Louis Christopher began monitoring underquoting in NSW last year and was “gobsmacked” by the numbers.

In late 2024, SQM found over 4000 instances of underquoting in Sydney, including the inner west, Christopher said.

“We were only counting the ones that passed in because that was, for us, absolute proof that there was underquoting.

“Agents argue that in the heat of the auction, the market priced the property higher than the guide. But when the property literally passes in above the price guide, and then they relist at 10 per cent above the price guide, they are breaking the law.”

Christopher said he was providing information to NSW Fair Trading.

Josh Tesolin, from Ngu Real Estate Quakers Hill, recorded median price guides 19 per cent below his final sales prices this year, Homer App data shows.

Josh Tesolin was suspended by NSW Fair Trading for four months following an investigation by this masthead.

Following an exposé by the Herald, Tesolin and his company, Tesolin Consulting, were suspended until December, pending possible disciplinary action, after allegations he seriously and repeatedly broke the law.

Tesolin’s lawyer, Lisa Jemmeson, said he was unable to review his business records and couldn’t comment, other than to say the agency he works for follows its legal and statutory obligations.

Mark Saleh, principal and sales agent at Pace Property Agents, had median price guides of 18 per cent below the final sales price across 145 sales between January and November 7 this year, Homer App data shows.

Jemmeson, who also acts for Saleh, said he operates in an area that is very competitive with buyers, and “from time to time”, his auctions sell well above the reserve price.

“Mr Saleh is mindful of complying with his obligations and ensuring that vendors and buyers dealing with his agency have a transparent and positive experience,” she said.

Raine & Horne Wetherill Park selling principal Sam Ruisi’s sales overshot his price guides by an average of 18 per cent and a median variance of 16 per cent this year, according to Homer App.

“Some of the price guides used by Homer App appear to be backend portal ranges that are not visible to the public and are not used as price representations,” Ruisi said.

“NSW Fair Trading has reviewed our sales processes, including many of the properties listed in your spreadsheet, and no fines or infringements were issued.”

Agents enter a guide price into online marketplaces to control where the property appears in the price filters, Pedersen said.

“We capture these prices and if there is a range, we rely on the maximum of the range,” he said.

Real estate agents are not valuers and do not have the same level of expertise or tertiary qualifications as valuers; a real estate agent can only offer their opinion of price, not a valuation, Jemmeson said.

“A price guide on an auction property is not a private treaty price, and a property selling above an auction guide does not, in and of itself, allow for a conclusion to be drawn that an agency underquoted.”

The state government is considering new rules to penalise agents up to three times their sales commission for offering misleading price guides, and mandating a listing price on all advertising backed by a statement of information to support an agent’s estimated sales price claim.

Fair Trading Minister Anoulack Chanthivong previously told the Herald that stronger underquoting laws are needed to restore trust and improve transparency.

An underquoting and price misrepresentation course mandated for all agents to complete by June 30 was ignored by about one in four, according to Fair Trading’s latest annual report. And three of the training providers across all real estate courses were found to be non-compliant with requirements.

Buyer’s agent Michelle May said inner west agencies were being “swooped” by Fair Trading, but this area was not the only place where unrealistic price guides applied.

“It’s rife, no matter which market you look at,” she said. “99 per cent of the buyers that I speak with are incredibly frustrated, disheartened, angry even, realising that they never had a chance to begin with,” May said.

Anja Pavlovic and her young family gave up on the inner west after a series of disappointments.

“At open homes, we were seeing 20, 30, 40 people. Honestly, it would be constant. You wouldn’t even get to talk to a real estate agent,” Pavlovic said. “We would love the inner west, but it was just getting ridiculous. Places were being quoted at $1.3 million, and then selling at $1.8 million. Even a one-bedroom house in Newtown sold the other day for $1.6million. A one-bedroom!”

Her family spent six months looking from February to July this year, and eventually bought a three-bedroom place on the north shore.