How Perth's Property Market Ended Up Drowning in Duplicate Listing Photos — and What's Being Done About It

Perth's property listings have a problem that buyers scrolling through realestate.com.au know all too well: the same kitchen shot appearing three times in a single listing, a neighbour's front yard standing in for the wrong address, or a Baldivis display home interior recycled to sell a Midland rental. The practice — broadly called duplicate image use in real estate listings — has become common enough that both the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia and state consumer protection authorities have fielded complaints about it in recent years.

The timing matters. Western Australia's housing market entered a period of extreme pressure from roughly mid-2022, driven by a combination of interstate migration, AUKUS-related defence worker arrivals around Henderson and Rockingham, and a sustained resources boom anchored to iron ore exports through Port Hedland and the Fremantle terminal. Stock on market fell sharply, agencies were listing properties faster than their internal quality-control processes could handle, and the shortcuts multiplied.

The Pipeline That Broke Down

Standard practice at most Perth agencies had been to commission a photographer for each listing, upload images to their internal content management system, and then push a curated set to the major portals. That pipeline held up reasonably well when the market was moving at a normal pace. By late 2023 and into 2024, several Northbridge-based agencies and franchise groups operating across the northern suburbs — from Scarborough through to Joondalup — reported turnaround times on photography dropping from 48 hours to same-day requests. Freelance photographers working across the Wanneroo corridor told industry forums they were completing up to nine shoots in a single day at that peak.

At those volumes, human error in the upload stage became almost inevitable. Images tagged incorrectly in a shared drive, stock photos used as placeholders and never replaced, and in some cases images pulled from a previous listing at the same address and simply reattached to a new campaign — these were the scenarios generating the bulk of consumer complaints. The issue was compounded by the fact that several mid-tier agencies had shifted to lower-cost offshore virtual assistant services based in the Philippines and India to handle listing data entry from about 2023 onward, a cost-cutting measure that became common as commission margins tightened despite high sale prices.

Where the Regulatory Pressure Now Sits

Consumer Protection WA, operating under the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, has the authority to act on misleading property representations under the Australian Consumer Law as applied in this state. A listing that shows a substantially different property to the one being sold can, in principle, attract action under those provisions. The Real Estate and Business Agents Act 1978 is the other relevant instrument. Whether agencies face formal action typically depends on whether a buyer can demonstrate material detriment — a bar that, consumer advocates have argued, is set too high for a complaint about photos alone to clear.

The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, headquartered on Havelock Street in West Perth, has updated its professional standards guidance to address digital image accuracy, including a recommendation that agencies implement a two-stage image verification check before any listing goes live. That guidance, updated in the 2024-25 training calendar, is not mandatory but forms part of continuing professional development requirements for licensed agents.

Technology is moving faster than regulation. Several Perth-based proptech firms, including at least one operating out of the Spacecubed co-working hub on St Georges Terrace in the CBD, have developed automated duplicate-detection tools that flag repeated images across a portal database before a listing is published. Adoption has been patchy. The major national portals have their own image-matching systems, but these are primarily designed to catch copyright infringement rather than accidental duplication within a single agent's inventory.

For buyers and renters navigating the current market, the practical advice from consumer protection authorities is straightforward: treat listing photos as indicative only, request a full inspection before signing anything, and if images appear inconsistent with the physical address, ask the agent in writing to confirm every photograph relates to the specific property on offer. Keeping that paper trail matters if a dispute arises later.