# Survey finds 76% of buyer's agents charge a fixed fee as demand slows
A national survey of buyer's agents, with 44% of its answers from Queensland, points to fixed fees, referral clients and support for tighter rules. Its sample size is not published.
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Three in four buyer's agents who answered a new national survey say they charge a fixed fee rather than a percentage of the purchase price. The figure, 76%, comes from the 2026 Australian Buyers Agent Index, and was made public on 9 October 2026 in a column published by the trade title Elite Agent.
The same column reports that 48% of respondents say buyer demand has significantly decreased over the past 12 months, that 84% describe their client base as overwhelmingly repeat or referral, and that more than half want stricter regulation of their own profession. Queensland carries more weight in the results than any other state: 44% of respondents are based here, ahead of New South Wales on 32% and Victoria on 20%.
Those numbers deserve attention and some care. The index is run by a national directory of buyer's agents, and the column was written by Leon Hayes, the directory's co-founder and chief executive, who created the survey. The full report had not been located in public at the time of writing, and the column does not say how many agents answered.
## What the survey reports
The column describes the index as a 50-question national survey covering fees, client behaviour, market sentiment, tools and outlook. Three of its results are given as exact percentages.
Three results from the 2026 indexShare of responding buyer's agents, per cent
2026 Australian Buyers Agent Index, as reported in Elite Agent on 9 October 2026. Number of respondents not published.
The fourth result, on regulation, is given only as "more than half", with no exact share. The state split of 44%, 32% and 20% adds up to 96%, and the column does not say where the remaining 4% of respondents are based.
One point needs reading closely. In its summary, the column says buyer demand is down 48% year on year. In its body, it says 48% of agents report that demand has significantly decreased over the past 12 months. These are different statements: the first would be a measured fall in enquiries, the second is the share of agents who feel a strong fall. Only the second is described as a survey answer, so that is the reading used here. It says nothing about how far demand has fallen, only how widely the fall is felt.
## Who ran it, and what is not known
The survey was announced in Elite Agent on 16 August 2026. That announcement said it was open to licensed buyer's agents in Australia, took about 15 minutes to complete and would close on 31 August 2026. The directory's own survey page adds that participation was subject to eligibility verification and that the report would be released publicly in the fourth quarter of 2026. The announcement presented it as the first survey of its kind.
Read with care
The number of agents who answered has not been published
Neither the column nor the survey page gives a respondent count, a response rate or a margin of error. Without them, a percentage cannot be turned into a number of businesses, and a small sample would make each figure less steady.
Some context on scale is available from the same publisher. In March 2026, Elite Agent reported that the directory had verified its 100th buyer's agent, and that it put the number of buyer's agents operating across Australia at about 3,000. That estimate is the directory's own. It does not tell readers how many of those agents answered the survey, or whether respondents were mostly businesses already listed with the directory.
Two more limits follow from the method as described. Agents chose whether to take part, so the answers describe those who responded and not necessarily the whole profession. And with 44% of respondents in Queensland, the national picture leans towards this state, where investor buying and interstate clients have been a large part of buyer's agents' work. For Queensland readers that is useful; as a national benchmark it is a tilt worth knowing about.
No independent coverage of the results was found by 10 October 2026. Every survey figure in this article therefore comes from the column and its author.
## Why a fixed fee holds when prices move
The column's central argument is arithmetic. A percentage fee moves with the purchase price; a fixed fee does not. If clients buy cheaper properties, or agents accept lower budgets to keep working, a percentage-based business earns less for the same search, while a fixed-fee business earns the same.
The Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia (REBAA) describes both models in the questions and answers it publishes for consumers. For a full service of search, inspection, due diligence and negotiation, it puts a percentage fee at somewhere between 2% and 3% of the purchase price, plus GST and an engagement fee to start. The alternative it describes is a flat fee, also with an engagement fee.
A worked example shows the gap. It assumes a full-service fee of 2.5%, the midpoint of the range REBAA gives, compared with a fixed fee of $17,500. It leaves out GST and any engagement fee, and assumes the same amount of work for both purchases.
The same search under two fee modelsA worked example, before GST
Purchase price
Fee at 2.5%
Fixed fee
$850,000
$21,250
$17,500
$700,000
$17,500
$17,500
Change
Down $3,750
No change
Illustrative figures, not market data. The 2.5% rate is the midpoint of the 2% to 3% range REBAA describes for a full service.
In this example the purchase price falls by $150,000, or 17.6%, and the percentage fee falls by the same 17.6%. The fixed fee is unchanged. The effect cuts both ways: in a rising market, the percentage fee grows without any change to the work, and the fixed fee stays where it was agreed.
For a client, the difference is partly about certainty. A fixed fee is known on the day of signing. A percentage fee is known only when a property is secured, and some buyers are uneasy about paying more when their agent's task was to negotiate the price down. The magazine's July guide to how buyer's agents are paid sets out both models in detail.
The survey result does not show that fixed fees are new, or that agents moved to them because demand weakened. The index is in its first year, so it has no earlier figure to compare with, and the column offers the link between fees and steadier revenue as its author's interpretation.
## How Queensland law treats the fee
Whatever model is used, Queensland law cares less about the type of fee than about how it is recorded. A buyer's agent here works under the same legislation as a selling agent, the Property Occupations Act 2014.
According to the REIQ, a person working for a principal licensee needs a registration certificate, while operating a buyer's agency independently requires a full real estate licence. The Queensland Government says a licence can be checked on the state's public register.
The appointment itself is made in writing on a prescribed form. The Queensland Government's guidance on appointing a buyer's agent says the residential form, known as Form 6, must set out the services the agent will provide and any limits on them, all commissions, fees and expenses for those services, and the date they fall due. The guidance adds that either party can end an appointment by written notice, with a minimum notice period of 30 days unless both agree to less.
There is no set rate. The REIQ notes that maximum commission rates for residential real estate were deregulated in Queensland in 2014, that no standard commission exists, and that an agent must state a GST-inclusive commission amount and when it is payable. A fixed fee and a percentage fee are both lawful; each has to be written into the appointment before the agent acts. An earlier guide in this magazine covers what Form 6 must contain.
## Referrals carry the client list
The 84% figure describes where work comes from: agents who say their client base is overwhelmingly repeat or referral. The column treats this as a strength and a risk at once. A business built on returning clients and word of mouth costs little to market and tends to start each engagement with trust already in place. It is also exposed when those clients pause, because there is no second source of enquiry to fall back on.
That reading fits the 48% who report a significant fall in demand. If existing clients are buying less often, a referral-led business feels it quickly. The survey as reported does not break the demand answer down by state, by fee model or by type of client, so it cannot show whether Queensland agents, or investor-focused agencies, feel the slowdown more than others.
## Why agents are asking for tighter rules
The finding that more than half of respondents want stricter regulation lands in a debate that was already running.
REBAA, the national association for exclusive buyer's agents, has argued for tougher entry standards for some time. In June 2025, Real Estate Business reported its then president, Melinda Jennison, calling on regulators to enforce stricter education and licensing standards, on the ground that general real estate licensing courses do not prepare people for buyer-side work such as due diligence and negotiation. She said then that a person could be licensed "in just a few days". The association's own entry bar is higher than the licence alone: its published membership criteria include professional indemnity cover of at least $2,000,000 and a rule against holding properties for sale.
The debate sharpened in 2026. A national buyer's agency entered liquidation on 28 May, and Real Estate Business reported in June that 695 customers were listed as creditors for prepaid services and refunds, with claims of $10,594,079. In the same report, the chairs of two property investor bodies called for better licensing and regulation of the sector, and REBAA's vice president, Zoran Solano, cautioned against large upfront fees and performance guarantees. This magazine reported the collapse in June and REBAA's change of president in August.
Seen against that background, the survey answer is less surprising than it first looks. Established agents share the cost when a failure damages confidence in the whole profession, and a higher entry bar protects the reputation their referral business depends on. The column makes the same point, describing support for regulation as a concern for trust.
## What is still to come
The directory's survey page says the full report will be released in the fourth quarter of 2026. Three things in it would change how much weight the headline figures can bear: the number of agents who responded, the exact share behind "more than half" on regulation, and any breakdown by state.
Until then, the results are best read as an early signal from within the profession, published by a business that serves it. On the main point, they are consistent with what buyer's agents and their association already say in public: fees are increasingly agreed as a set amount, clients arrive through people who have used the service before, and many practitioners would welcome clearer rules about who may call themselves a buyer's agent.
> A survey without a published sample size can show a direction. It cannot yet show how far the profession has travelled along it.