Canberra's Property Listings Are Riddled With Duplicate Photos — And Officials Say It's Costing Buyers

ACT consumer protection officials confirmed this week they have received a sharp rise in complaints about duplicate and recycled photographs in residential property listings, with the issue now formally on the radar of Access Canberra's fair trading unit. Inspectors identified at least 34 separate listings on major portals between January and June this year where images from one property had been reused — sometimes across multiple suburbs — without disclosure to prospective buyers.

The timing matters. Canberra's rental vacancy rate sat at just 1.1 percent in the June quarter, according to the Real Estate Institute of the ACT, and median house prices in growth corridors like Gungahlin and Molonglo remain above $850,000. In that environment, buyers and renters making decisions based on photographs — often before they can schedule an inspection — carry real financial risk when those photographs lie.

What Officials and Experts Are Saying

Access Canberra's fair trading division has written to the Real Estate Institute of the ACT urging it to update its member code of conduct before the end of the third quarter. A spokesperson for the office said the practice, while not always deliberate, can breach the Australian Consumer Law's prohibition on misleading conduct, and that agents cannot simply claim ignorance when photographs are sourced from shared listing databases without verification.

The Real Estate Institute of the ACT, based on Jardine Street in Kingston, has publicly backed tighter standards. The institute's professional development committee is understood to be drafting a mandatory image-verification checklist — a first for the territory — that would require agents to confirm photographs were taken at the listed property within 90 days of going to market. Industry sources say a draft could be circulated to members by August.

Researchers at the Australian National University's College of Law have been watching the issue from a consumer rights angle. Academic work out of the college's Regulatory Institutions Network, known as RegNet, flags that Australia's consumer protection framework was written before AI-assisted image generation became commercially accessible, leaving a meaningful gap around digitally altered or AI-enhanced property photos that go beyond standard brightness adjustments. That gap, one research paper circulated internally in May argued, is increasingly being exploited in competitive metropolitan markets — and Canberra's public-servant buyer cohort, often time-poor and conducting searches remotely, is particularly exposed.

The ACT Tenants Union, which operates out of Civic, has fielded calls from renters who signed leases after viewing online photographs that turned out to depict either a different unit in the same complex or the property in a condition that no longer existed. One case involved a two-bedroom apartment in Belconnen where photographs showed a renovated kitchen that had since been reverted to its original fitout. The union argues that a $500 administrative penalty — the current maximum for misleading advertising under ACT regulations — is not a serious deterrent for agencies turning over multi-million-dollar commissions.

Practical Steps Buyers Can Take Now

Consumer advocates say there are immediate ways to protect yourself. Reverse image searching property photographs through Google Images or TinEye takes under a minute and can immediately reveal whether the same photo appears attached to a different address or suburb. The ACT Government's online MyPlace portal, which holds a database of development approvals and building certifications, can also be used to verify whether recent renovations depicted in listing photos were actually approved for the address in question.

Access Canberra has also reminded buyers and renters that they can lodge a complaint through the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal if a listing is found to have been demonstrably misleading. ACAT lodgement fees for consumer disputes start at $98 and the tribunal has jurisdiction to order compensation up to $25,000.

The Real Estate Institute of the ACT said it expects to have its revised code of conduct provision in place before the spring selling season, which typically kicks off in September. If agents do not comply voluntarily, Access Canberra's fair trading inspectors have indicated they are prepared to pursue enforcement action under the Australian Consumer Law — a process that can result in penalties exceeding $50,000 for corporate respondents.