In this article
Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →"Top 50 agent" appears on signboards, email signatures and listing presentations across Queensland, and most sellers have no way of knowing what stands behind it. The phrase usually refers to a ranking published once a year by a trade magazine, built from sales results for the previous calendar year. It is a real measure of something. The useful question for a seller is what, exactly.
This guide takes the main ranking of Queensland agents and its national counterpart apart. It explains who compiles them, which figures go in, what the 2026 editions show, why the people at the top look so different from an ordinary agent, and what a ranking cannot say about how a particular home will sell. The figures come from Real Estate Business, the trade publication that produces the rankings, as published in May and June 2026. It is a guide to reading a ranking, not a recommendation of any agent.
Source: Real Estate Business, Top 50 Agents Queensland 2026, based on 2025 calendar-year results.
What the Queensland ranking is
The best-known list is the Top 50 Agents ranking published by Real Estate Business, known in the trade as REB. It produces one for each state or pair of states in May and early June, then a national Top 100. The 2026 Queensland edition appeared in late May, compiled by a research firm, Agile Market Intelligence.
It ranks individual residential sales agents. Property managers, commercial agents, buyer's agents and auctioneers are outside it, and so are agencies as businesses, which the same publication covers in separate lists such as its Top 50 Sales Offices. A ranking of the fastest-growing property management businesses was announced in August 2026.
Related readDuty to the seller, honesty to the buyer: what the law asks of an agentThe publication describes the method as performance-based. An agent's position rests on results for the previous calendar year, so the 2026 list is a record of 2025.
How a position is worked out
According to Real Estate Business, the ranking uses five inputs for each agent.
| Input | What it captures | What tends to lift it |
|---|---|---|
| Total value of settled residential sales | Dollar volume for the year | High prices and many sales |
| Number of properties settled | Transaction count | A large team and a busy suburb |
| Average sale price | The price bracket worked in | Prestige and waterfront markets |
| Days on market | How quickly listings sold | A strong market and realistic pricing |
| Years of experience | Time in the industry | Longevity |
Source: Real Estate Business, methodology for the Top 50 and Top 100 Agents rankings, 2026.
For the national list the publication adds that agents are ranked comparatively on each measure and the comparative scores are combined to give a final position. No single number decides it. An agent with fewer sales at very high prices can sit beside one with many sales at moderate prices.
Two features of the method are worth noticing. The figures are settled sales, not contracts signed, so a sale counts in the year the money changed hands. And every input except days on market grows with the price of the homes sold and the size of the operation. The ranking measures scale and speed. It was not designed to measure anything else.
The 2026 Queensland numbers
Taken together, the 50 ranked agents settled 5,185 properties in 2025 with a combined value of $8.4 billion, Real Estate Business reported. A year earlier the equivalent group had settled 4,967 properties worth $7.3 billion.
The two measures grew at different rates. The number of properties rose by 218, or 4.4 per cent. The value rose by $1.1 billion, or 15.1 per cent. On those rounded figures, most of the growth in the headline total came from a higher value per sale, not from extra sales.
Per agent, the publication gives an average of 104 properties and $167.4 million in 2025, up from 99 properties and $146.1 million. The average sale price across the group was $1.8 million and the average time on market 34 days.
Related readBecoming a real estate agent in Queensland: registration or licenceThat price figure deserves a second look. Dividing the combined value by the combined count gives about $1.62 million per property. The published $1.8 million is higher because it is an average of each agent's own average, which gives an agent with 40 very expensive sales the same weight as one with 200 mid-priced ones. Both figures are legitimate. They answer slightly different questions, and the gap is a reminder to read ranking statistics with their definitions.
Why the top ten look different
The first ten names carry a disproportionate share of the total. Real Estate Business reported that the top ten Queensland agents settled 1,190 properties worth $2.9 billion in 2025, against 1,163 properties and $2.5 billion a year earlier.
Ten agents are a fifth of the list. They accounted for 23.0 per cent of the properties and 34.5 per cent of the value. Their average was 119 properties and $287.0 million each, and their average sale price $2.7 million, up from $2.5 million. Their listings sold in 31 days on average, three days faster than the full fifty.
Source: Real Estate Business, Top 50 Agents Queensland 2026 and Top 100 Agents 2026.
The pattern is the same in most rankings of this kind. The difference between first and tenth is larger than the difference between twentieth and fiftieth, and what separates the leaders is mainly price bracket. An agent whose average sale is $2.7 million needs far fewer transactions to reach a given dollar volume than one selling at the Brisbane median.
For a seller, that is the first caution. A high position says a great deal about the market the agent works in. A seller with a three-bedroom house in a middle-ring suburb is not choosing between prestige specialists, and the agent who sells the most homes like theirs may not be on the list at all.
Related readFewer sales, longer campaigns: Brisbane's slowdown seen from the agencyAn agent on the list is usually a team
One line in the published figures changes how every other number should be read. The top ten Queensland agents had, on average, 2.9 support staff each, and about 20 years in the industry.
No individual personally runs 119 campaigns in a year, which would be more than two settlements every week with no break. The name on the ranking is the lead agent of a small business within the agency. Associates conduct many of the open homes and buyer calls, an administrator handles the paperwork, and the lead agent concentrates on winning listings and negotiating.
This is neither a secret nor a criticism. A well-run team can give a seller more attention than a single agent stretched across too many listings. But it changes the question a seller should ask. The useful one is not whether the agent is ranked. It is who will be at the open homes, who will call the buyers back, and who will be on the phone when an offer comes in on a Friday night. The ranking belongs to the team's results. The appointment is signed with the agency, and the service is delivered by whoever the team assigns.
It also bears on the licence position. Associates in a team are generally registered salespersons working under the agency's licensee, with the same conduct obligations as the lead agent. A seller can check each of them on the Office of Fair Trading's public register.
Queensland beside the national list
The national Top 100, published by Real Estate Business on 4 June 2026, sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank and in its fifteenth year, gives a point of comparison. The hundred agents on it settled 12,154 properties in 2025 with a combined value of $28,393,446,878. That is an average of 122 settlements and about $283.9 million each, at an average sale price of $2,588,963, with 33 days on market, 19 years in the industry and 3.2 support staff.
Related readComplaints about a Queensland agent: who handles them, what can happenThe national top ten are another step up: 1,489 settlements worth $6,064,220,409 between them, an average sale price of $4,470,554, 31 days on market, 22 years of experience and 4.1 support staff.
Set against those, Queensland's top ten look much like the national hundred. Their average volume of $287.0 million sits just above the national list's $283.9 million, their average price of $2.7 million is close to its $2.6 million, and their team size of 2.9 is close to its 3.2. Queensland's full fifty, at $167.4 million each, work at a lower price point: $1.8 million against $2.6 million.
The comparison says more about property prices in each capital than about the agents. A national list draws on the most expensive markets in the country, and a volume-based ranking reflects their prices. On the measures that do not depend on price, the lists are nearly identical: 34 days on market for Queensland's fifty, 33 for the national hundred.
A ranking describes last year's market
The calendar-year basis has a consequence that matters more in some years than others. The 2026 ranking was published in late May 2026 from sales settled between January and December 2025. By the time a seller reads it in spring 2026, the newest result in it is nine months old and the oldest nearly two years.
When the market is steady, that lag is harmless. This year it is not. Real Estate Business itself reported on 3 August 2026 that Brisbane, which had held up longer than the southern capitals, had joined the national downturn in home values. An average of 34 days on market was achieved in the conditions of 2025. It is not a forecast of how long a listing will take now.
Related readCPD for Queensland property agents: who must do it and what countsThe trade's own commentary acknowledges the gap. Tom Panos, the founder of the training business Real Estate Gym, told Real Estate Business on 9 September 2026, after the publication's Top 100 event, that the leading agents he works with were running 10 to 20 per cent below their earlier results, against falls he estimated at around 50 per cent across the broader industry. Those are one trainer's estimates and they are national. They suggest that ranked agents have held up better than most, and also that the figures printed beside their names describe a busier year than the one they are working in.
A 2026 ranking is a record of 2025 sales
The rankings use settled sales from the previous calendar year. Days on market and sales volumes in the 2026 lists were achieved before Brisbane's market turned, and say nothing about present conditions.
What a ranking cannot tell a seller
The inputs define the limits. Five things a seller might reasonably want to know are not among them.
The first is price against expectation. The ranking records what homes sold for, not whether each sold above or below what comparable sales suggested, or what the agent first quoted the owner. An agent can rank highly by selling many homes quickly at prices their owners found disappointing.
The second is what did not sell. Listings that were withdrawn, or that expired and went to another agent, do not appear in settled sales.
The third is the client's experience. Nothing in the method measures communication, accuracy of advice or how a problem was handled.
The fourth is fit. A position on a statewide list does not show how many of an agent's sales were in the seller's suburb, at the seller's price or of the seller's property type.
The fifth is who is not there. The published methodology explains how ranked agents are scored. It does not say how many agents were assessed in total, so a ranking should be read as a list of high performers among those considered, not as a census of every agent in Queensland.
Related readHow to check a Queensland agent's licence on the public registerNone of these gaps is a flaw in the ranking. It sets out to measure volume and does so with stated inputs. The mistake would be to read it as something broader.
Rankings, awards and the licence
Three different things are often presented to sellers together, and they are worth separating.
A ranking is arithmetic applied to sales results by a publisher. The Real Estate Business lists are the main example, and the same publisher produces others, including a Top 50 Women in Real Estate list published in June 2026.
An award is a judgment. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland's Awards for Excellence are entered by submission and assessed by judges, with categories for property managers, support staff and agencies as well as salespeople. The institute named its 2026 finalists on 3 September, after a record number of nominations, and will announce winners on 31 October. Since 1 July 2026 the institute has again been a member of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, which gives eligible Queensland winners a path to the national awards. Trade publishers run awards too: Real Estate Business reopened its Women in Real Estate Awards on 16 September 2026 after a five-year break, with 21 categories.
A licence is neither. It is the legal permission to do the work, issued by the Office of Fair Trading under the Property Occupations Act 2014, and every agent on every list holds the same one as an agent on none. It sets the floor that rankings and awards sit above: the training, the criminal history check, the conduct standards and the trust account rules.
Related readLicensed in another state: can an agent work on a Queensland sale?A ranked agent and an unranked one therefore owe a seller exactly the same legal duties, must be appointed on the same form, and must base a price opinion on the same kind of evidence. Recognition is about standing among peers. It does not change the rules of the engagement.
Reading a ranking sensibly
A seller who is shown a ranking in a listing presentation can put it to work with a few questions.
Ask which list and which year. A state Top 50 and a national Top 100 are different fields, and a result from three years ago is a different market.
Ask what the agent's own numbers were: how many settled sales, at what average price, in how many days. The published group averages give a yardstick, at 104 sales and 34 days for the Queensland fifty.
Ask how many of those sales were in the seller's suburb and price range, and ask to see them. Those are also the sales that should support the agent's opinion of price. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance says an estimate of value must rest on at least three comparable properties within five kilometres sold in the previous six months.
Ask who is in the team and who does what. With an average of about three support staff behind each leading agent, the answer shapes the service more than the ranking does.
Then compare. A ranking is evidence that an agent has sold a great deal of property and has done so for a long time, and that counts for something. Set beside two other agents' recent sales in the same streets, it becomes one fact among several, which is the weight it can properly bear.
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.
