A rent figure from software: what Queensland's Act asks before it runs

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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Somewhere between a vacate notice and a new listing, a number has to be chosen. For most of the history of property management in Queensland that number came from a manager's knowledge of the street, a look at what was listed nearby and a conversation with the owner. Increasingly a screen offers a suggestion as well: a weekly rent, sometimes a band around it, produced from listings and leasing data by software that the manager did not write and cannot fully see inside.

This guide is about what happens to that suggestion once it meets Queensland law. It does not review any product and it does not explain how to price a rental. It sets out what the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 and the Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) require when a rent is advertised, offered, accepted or raised, and shows at which points a software recommendation can sit comfortably inside those rules and at which points it cannot. The magazine's guide of 10 June 2026 covers the frequency of rent increases, the notice and the dispute path. This one stays with an earlier moment: how the figure is arrived at, and how it is put in front of applicants.

One finding belongs at the start. The research for this guide looked for a statement by an Australian regulator, or a dated report in the established Australian press, about software that recommends residential rents. None was found. What exists in Australia is a general position of the competition regulator on pricing algorithms, described further down. The controversies that turn up in a search are North American, and they are not treated here as if they were local.

The number on the screen and the number in the advertisement

A recommendation tool and the Act are concerned with different things, and the difference explains most of what follows. The tool answers a commercial question: what would the market pay for this home this month? The Act does not ask that question at the listing stage. It does not set a ceiling on the rent of a home advertised for the first time, and nothing read on the RTA's pages for this guide prescribes a method for choosing a figure.

What the Act controls is the form in which the figure is shown and the conduct that follows. Section 57 of the Act, as published on the Queensland legislation website, provides that a person must not advertise or otherwise offer a residential tenancy unless the advertisement or offer states a fixed amount for the rent. The maximum penalty is 50 penalty units. The RTA's page on rent bidding puts it in one line: a rental property must be advertised at a fixed price, and failing to do so is an offence.

The Act, in other words, looks at what a manager publishes, not at what a manager consulted. A figure that began as a software suggestion, a figure taken from a spreadsheet and a figure named by the owner over the phone are all the same thing in law once they appear in an advertisement: the fixed amount for which the tenancy is offered.

One fixed amount, with no range around it

Software often expresses uncertainty honestly. A model may report that a three-bedroom house in a given suburb would lease somewhere between two figures, with a most likely value in the middle. That is a reasonable way to describe an estimate. It is not a lawful way to advertise a rental.

The RTA's rent bidding page lists what a property manager or owner must not do, and the first item is advertising a property with a rent range. The example the RTA gives is $420 to $460 a week. The second item is putting a property up for rent auction. Both are ways of letting applicants find the price among themselves, and both are closed.

Section 57 carries one exception, and it is narrow. Under subsection (4), placing a sign on or near the premises that advertises the tenancy without stating a rent does not by itself contravene the section. The RTA explains the same point for a general reader: the price does not have to appear on a "for rent" sign at the property, but any other advertisement must include a fixed price. A portal listing, a social media post, an agency window card and an email to a database of applicants are all advertisements or offers in the ordinary sense, and each needs the one figure.

So a manager who receives a band from a tool has a decision to make before anything is published. The band has to be collapsed into a single amount, and that choice belongs to the people the Act addresses.

When an applicant offers more than the advertised rent

The second half of the rule deals with what happens after the listing goes live. Section 57(3) provides that a person must not solicit or accept an offer of rent above the fixed amount stated in the advertisement or offer, again with a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units.

The word "accept" is the one that surprises people. The RTA's page says a manager or owner must not proactively tell applicants to offer above the advertised price, must not encourage them to outbid each other, and must not accept offers above the advertised price. Its case studies make the last point concrete. In one, an applicant offered $15 a week above the asking price together with two months' rent in advance, and the manager accepted. The RTA's verdict is that this was illegal even though the manager had not encouraged the offer.

For anyone using demand signals to price, this matters in a specific way. A listing that draws twenty enquiries in a day tells the manager that the figure was probably low. Software may say the same thing in the form of an updated suggestion. The Act leaves the manager free to learn from that for the next listing. It does not allow the lesson to be collected from the current applicants by taking a higher offer from one of them.

A companion provision, section 57AA, deals with rent in advance in the same spirit. The RTA explains that since 6 June 2024 an owner or manager must not solicit, accept or invite rent in advance above the limit at the start of a new tenancy, even if the prospective tenant offers more. The limits it gives are two weeks for periodic tenancies, rooming accommodation and moveable dwelling agreements, and one month for fixed-term agreements, with a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units.

There is a consequence for the bond as well. Section 57(2) provides that a person must not accept a rental bond for premises if the tenancy was advertised or offered without a fixed amount of rent. An advertisement that broke the first rule therefore taints the next step of the letting.

The 12-month clock that a pricing model cannot see

A model built on listings sees the market. It does not necessarily see the history of the one home it is pricing, and in Queensland that history is decisive.

The RTA's guidance on rent increases states that rent cannot be increased unless at least 12 months have passed since the current amount of rent became payable. The period applies, it says, even if the last increase happened under a different agreement, with a different tenant, or under a previous agent or a previous owner. Increases made in the 12 months before the requirement began are counted too. Raising the rent inside the period is an offence with a maximum penalty of 20 penalty units.

Take a worked example with invented figures. A unit is let at $520 a week, and that rent took effect on 1 February 2026 after an increase. The tenant leaves in May 2026. A tool, looking at comparable listings, suggests $560. Under the RTA's guidance the unit cannot be re-let at $560 in May, because 12 months have not passed since $520 became payable for those premises. The earliest day a higher rent could apply is 1 February 2027. The suggestion may be an accurate reading of the market and still be a figure the lessor is not permitted to charge.

Two points follow for an agency. The first is that the date of the last increase is a fact about the premises that must travel with the file. The RTA says that date must be included in the tenancy agreement, and that a tenant can ask for written proof of it, which the manager or owner must supply within 14 days. It adds that an owner is treated as having the information when an agent holds it. The second is that the check against the 12 months has to be made by a person who has that date in front of them, at the moment the figure is chosen, and before the advertisement is drafted.

The RTA notes two situations in which the last-increase requirements work differently: exempt lessors, and a home being rented for the first time, where the date used is the start of the agreement. It also describes one route to an earlier increase, an application to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) on the ground of undue hardship, for an owner who had let the home to friends or family at a lower rent. The tribunal must consider what the tenant has to say. None of this is something a recommendation can settle.

Raising the rent of a sitting tenant

The same figure-finding question arises at renewal, and here the Act prescribes more of the process. The magazine's earlier guide sets out the notice periods and the three items a notice must contain, so only the parts that touch on how the figure is derived are repeated.

During a fixed term, the RTA says, an increase is possible only if the agreement states that the rent will increase and gives the new amount or the method by which it will be calculated. For a general tenancy the tenant must also receive two months' written notice, in a separate notice that states the new amount, the day it takes effect and the date of the last increase.

That requirement is worth reading slowly by anyone tempted to leave the figure to a system. The agreement has to contain either a number or a method. A method written into a tenancy agreement is something both parties can read and apply. This guide found no RTA statement on whether a reference to an external tool's future output would satisfy the requirement, and it does not offer a view. What the RTA's wording does establish is that the tenant is entitled to know, from the agreement itself, how the new rent will be worked out.

At the end of a fixed term the parties may agree a new rent in a new agreement, provided the 12 months have passed, and the RTA says no notice is required in that case. During a periodic agreement, two months' written notice is needed for a general tenancy, once 12 months have passed since the current rent became payable.

What the tribunal weighs if a tenant objects

Queensland does not cap the size of an increase, but a tenant may challenge one as excessive. According to the RTA, a tenant can first raise the increase with the owner or manager, then apply for dispute resolution and, if needed, to QCAT. For an existing agreement the application has to be made within 30 days of receiving the notice; for a new agreement, within 30 days of signing it.

The matters the tribunal considers are the part that bears on software. The RTA lists them as including:

• market rents for similar premises
• the size of the increase
• the state of repair of the property
• the term of the tenancy
• the time since the last increase.

Only the first of those five is the kind of thing a market model is built to estimate. The other four are facts about this tenancy and this home. A recommendation of a large step up may be well supported by comparable listings and still look different once the repair history, the length of the tenancy and the gap since the last increase are placed beside it.

A pricing tool estimates what the market might pay. The Act asks what this home's rent was, when it last changed and how the new figure was put to the tenant.

What Australian regulators have said, and have not

Readers who follow overseas news will know that rent recommendation software has drawn the attention of competition authorities abroad. Searches made for this guide returned that North American coverage and no Australian equivalent: no statement by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), by the RTA or by another state body about rent-setting software, and no dated Australian press report of an inquiry into it. That is a fact about the research as of June 2026, not proof that the tools are unused here.

The nearest Australian material is general and some years old. On 16 November 2017 the ACCC published a media release on a speech by its then chairman, Rod Sims, in Sydney. It dealt with pricing algorithms across the economy and did not mention rents or real estate. Mr Sims referred to the concerted practices provision then newly added to section 45 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, which he said moved the question away from proving a meeting of minds and towards whether cooperation between competitors substantially lessens competition. He also said the ACCC had not seen anti-competitive algorithms that needed enforcement beyond its existing powers.

One sentence from that release is still quoted. A business, Mr Sims said, "cannot avoid liability by saying 'my robot did it'."

That is a statement about federal competition law, made about other industries, and it should not be stretched. It is relevant to a Queensland rent roll for one modest reason: it shows the approach an Australian regulator took when first asked who is responsible for a price that an algorithm produced. The answer was the business that used it.

Who answers for the figure

The tenancy Act reaches the same place by a shorter road. Its rules on advertised rent are addressed to "a person": the person who advertises or offers the tenancy, the person who solicits or accepts an offer, the person who takes the bond. The RTA's pages speak throughout of the property manager or owner. Nowhere in the provisions or pages read for this guide is there a defence that the figure, the range or the prompt came from a system.

In an ordinary managed tenancy two people stand behind the number.

The lessor decides the rent. A recommendation, whether from a tool or from the manager, is advice to the owner, and the owner's instruction is what the manager carries out. An owner who instructs a figure that the 12-month rule does not allow has not been relieved of that rule by the fact that the market, or a model of it, supports the figure.

The property manager publishes and negotiates. The advertisement, the conversations with applicants, the acceptance of an application and the receipt of the bond are the manager's acts, and they are the acts section 57 describes. A manager is also the person most likely to hold the date of the last increase, which the RTA treats as held by the owner when the agent has it.

Changing the advertised rent during a campaign

A question the rules raise, and that pricing software makes more pressing, is what happens when the advertised figure itself is changed while a home is on the market. Tools that track enquiry can suggest a revision within days.

The sources support a limited answer. Section 57 requires an advertisement or offer to state a fixed amount and forbids soliciting or accepting an offer above that amount. The RTA's page rules out encouraging applicants to outbid one another. Neither sets out a rule on re-advertising at a different figure, upward or downward, and this guide does not supply one. An upward revision made because applicants are competing sits close to what the ban addresses, so it is a question to put to the RTA before acting, not after.

How a breach comes to light

The rent bidding rules are enforced in a way that makes the published advertisement the main piece of evidence. The RTA says anyone who believes rent bidding has occurred can ask it for advice and request an investigation, and that rentals advertised without a fixed price can be reported anonymously through an online form. A listing with a range in it is therefore visible to every applicant who scrolls past, and any of them may report it.

The RTA's first case study shows how little it takes. An agent told an applicant there was no fixed price and asked for his best offer. The RTA describes that as illegal because it encourages rent bidding. No software is involved in that example, and none needs to be. A message template or an automated reply that invites applicants to name their figure would do the same thing at scale.

For increases, the trail is the paperwork the Act already demands: the date of the last increase written into the agreement, the notice with its three items, and the proof a tenant may request within 14 days.

Questions for an owner and a manager to settle together

None of the rules above stops a lessor or an agency from using data to inform a rent. The RTA itself publishes a median rents quick finder and links to it from its rent bidding page. The rules do fix a short list of things that people, not systems, must be able to answer for each property.

1. What is the date on which the current rent became payable for these premises, and who holds the proof?
2. Is the figure about to be advertised a single amount?
3. Does every advertisement other than a sign at the property carry that amount?
4. Do the agency's enquiry replies and application forms avoid any invitation to offer more?
5. If an applicant volunteers a higher rent or extra rent in advance, does the person handling the application know to decline it?
6. For a renewal, does the agreement state the new amount or the method, and would the reasons for the increase stand beside the five matters the tribunal considers?

A recommendation engine can help with none of the first five and with only part of the sixth. That is the fair measure of its place in a Queensland letting. It can inform the commercial judgment about what a home is worth each week. The fixed price, the refusal of higher offers, the 12 months and the explanation owed to a tenant who objects remain duties of the lessor and the manager, whatever the screen suggested.

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.

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