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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The Real Estate Institute of Queensland published the finalists for its 2026 Awards for Excellence on 3 September 2026, and said the field was the largest it has had. According to the institute's media release, nominations rose by more than 100 on previous years, a record for the program. The winners will be announced on Saturday 31 October at The Star Brisbane, and the institute said tickets would go on sale from 7 September.
For agents, property managers and the support staff behind them, a place on the list is the main form of peer recognition the Queensland profession offers. For everyone else, the announcement is a useful moment to look at what an industry award measures, how it differs from a sales ranking, and what changed this year: a new category, and a restored path from a Queensland win to a national one.
Source: REIQ media release, 3 September 2026.
What the institute announced
The release does not give a single total for finalists or entries, only the increase. It describes a program that covers residential and commercial sales, property management, buyers' agency, business broking, auctioneering, business development and agency support, with individual and agency categories. The full list of names sits on the institute's awards site, category by category. Two of the categories visible there give a sense of scale: 15 finalists for Agency Support Person of the Year and four for Auctioneer of the Year.
The REIQ's chief executive, Antonia Mercorella, said in the release: "To be named a finalist means you've distinguished yourself among a strong statewide crop of candidates." The institute said its judges had been impressed by the passion, innovation and dedication in the submissions, and that finalists came from all corners of the state.
Related readWhat a property manager does in Queensland: licence, appointment, dutiesElite Agent, the trade publication, reported the announcement on 4 September and noted the same record. Neither source says why entries rose. One plausible contributor is the calendar: nominations closed in July, the first awards round to close after the REIQ's return to the national institute on 1 July, which reopened a national stage for Queensland winners. The institute has not drawn that link itself.
A new category for networks
The one structural change this year is the Multi-Office Network of the Year award. When nominations opened, the REIQ said the category had been created in response to requests from members, to recognise agencies that operate several offices as a single business.
It fills a gap in how agency awards had been organised. Categories for agencies have usually been sorted by size or by region, which suits a single office. A group with five or ten offices under one owner did not fit neatly: each office could enter alone, but the thing that sets such a business apart, the shared training, systems and standards across sites, was not what a single-office category assessed. The new award judges the network as a whole.
The nomination material also notes that some categories are split between regional Queensland and the south-east. That split has a practical purpose. An agency in a town of 20,000 people and an agency in inner Brisbane work at different volumes and prices, and a judging panel comparing the two directly would mostly be comparing their markets.
What an award measures, and what a ranking measures
Industry awards and sales rankings are often mentioned together, and they answer different questions.
Related readWhat a Queensland agent must disclose to a buyer and to a sellerA ranking counts results. Real Estate Business published its Top 50 Agents Queensland ranking for 2026 in late May, compiled by Agile Market Intelligence from 2025 calendar-year figures: the dollar value of settled residential sales, the number of properties settled, average sale price, days on market and years of experience. On those figures the 50 ranked agents settled 5,185 properties worth $8.4 billion in 2025, up from 4,967 properties and $7.3 billion a year earlier, an average of 104 properties and $167.4 million each.
The REIQ awards work from written submissions assessed by judges. The institute's release says they recognise commercial success alongside leadership, best practice, multimedia, innovation, contribution to the industry and community involvement. Sales figures are part of an entry for a salesperson, but a property manager, an agency support person or a business development manager has no settled-sales number at all, and the program has categories for each of them.
| REIQ Awards for Excellence | REB Top 50 Agents Queensland | |
|---|---|---|
| Run by | The state's real estate institute | A trade publication, with a research firm |
| Basis | Written submissions, assessed by judges | Settled sales data for the calendar year |
| Who is covered | Sales, property management, auctioneers, support staff, agencies | Residential sales agents only |
| 2026 timing | Finalists 3 September, winners 31 October | Published in late May |
Sources: REIQ media release, 3 September 2026; Real Estate Business, Top 50 Agents Queensland 2026.
Neither is a measure of how a particular agent will perform for a particular seller or owner. A ranking shows volume, which rewards agents with large teams in high-priced suburbs. An award shows that a panel of peers found a submission convincing. Both say something real about professional standing, and neither replaces a seller's own comparison of the agents who work their street.
The road from Brisbane to the national awards
The restored national path is the larger change behind this year's program. In February 2026 the REIQ announced it would rejoin the Real Estate Institute of Australia as a state member from 1 July 2026, ending a period outside the national federation. The national body's chief executive, Scott Rollason, said at the time that with every state and territory represented it was once again a fully federated body.
Related readWhat the REIQ is and what it does for Queensland's property agentsOne consequence is spelled out in the REIQ's nomination material: eligible winners at the Queensland awards are automatically considered for the national institute's National Awards for Excellence. Queenslanders had already been allowed to compete at the national awards held in Melbourne on 21 May 2026, under the terms announced in February, and the REIQ reported the next day that they had won five national titles: Residential Salesperson of the Year, Residential Property Manager of the Year, Business Broker of the Year, the Operational Support Award and the Achievement Award.
For a finalist named this week, that changes what is at stake on 31 October. A state title in a category that has a national equivalent is no longer the end of the line. It is also an entry to the following year's national field.
- Nominations closeEntries for the 2026 Queensland awards closed in July, after the qualifying year ended on 30 June.
- Finalists namedThe REIQ published the list on 3 September after judging of submissions.
- Tickets on saleSales for the gala open on 7 September.
- Winners announcedSaturday 31 October at The Star Brisbane.
- National considerationEligible winners are put forward for the Real Estate Institute of Australia's national awards.
How the program has grown
The institute has not published a category count or a finalist total for 2026, so a direct comparison with earlier years is not possible. The last year for which trade press reported full figures gives a baseline. Elite Agent reported that the 2022 awards, held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, had 29 categories and 180 finalists and drew more than 880 real estate professionals to the ceremony.
Against that, an increase of more than 100 nominations in a single year is a large step. It comes in a year when the market has given agents less to celebrate. Real Estate Business reported on 3 August that Brisbane, resilient until then, had joined the broader national downturn in home values. That makes the timing of a record entry worth noting: interest in professional recognition has risen while conditions have become harder, not while they were easy.
Related readDuty to the seller, honesty to the buyer: what the law asks of an agentThat fits the way the awards are built. Because submissions are judged on practice as well as results, a difficult year gives entrants more to describe: how a team kept sellers informed through a longer campaign, how a property management office handled a year of rule changes, how a principal trained new staff. The judges' reference to innovation and dedication points the same way.
What a win means for clients
An award does not alter an agent's legal duties, their licence or their fee. A winner and a first-year agent are bound by the same Property Occupations Act 2014, the same conduct rules and the same requirement for a written appointment before acting.
What it can offer a seller or an owner is one more piece of evidence, of a particular kind. A finalist has been willing to have their work examined by a panel from their own industry, and a winner has come through that examination ahead of their peers in a given year and category. The category matters. Property Manager of the Year says nothing about selling a house, and an agency award is about the business, not about each person in it.
Membership matters too. The awards are the institute's own program, entered through its awards site, and membership of the REIQ is voluntary. A capable agent who is not a member, or who does not enter, will not appear. The finalist list is a record of who entered and impressed the judges. It is not a register of every good agent in Queensland.
What comes next
Ticket sales for the gala open on Monday 7 September. Winners in every category will be announced at The Star Brisbane on the evening of Saturday 31 October, and the REIQ has said the full finalist list remains on its awards site until then.
After the ceremony, winners in categories with a national equivalent become eligible for consideration at the awards run by the Real Estate Institute of Australia, under the arrangement described in the nomination material. The dates of the next national round have not been published in the material released so far.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
