Canberra Renters Speak Out: How Duplicate Property Listing Images Are Costing Them Time, Money and Peace of Mind

Apartment hunters in Canberra are increasingly confronting a frustrating and sometimes financially damaging problem: rental listings using duplicate, outdated or outright wrong photographs that bear little resemblance to the actual property. The practice, widespread enough to have spawned dedicated threads on the Canberra subreddit and Facebook groups serving Gungahlin and Belconnen residents, is drawing fresh scrutiny as the ACT's rental vacancy rate hovers near historic lows.

The timing matters. With public servants facing a cost-of-living crunch and the ACT government's own data showing median weekly rents for a two-bedroom unit in the inner north sitting above $550, prospective tenants have almost no margin for wasted effort. Taking half a day off work to inspect a Dickson apartment that looks nothing like its STA-listed photos is not a minor inconvenience — for many, it is a real financial hit.

Community members describing their experiences paint a consistent picture. A nurse working at Canberra Hospital who rents in the Tuggeranong Valley described driving to a property in Kambah after seeing bright, spacious photos online, only to find the unit had been significantly renovated — in the wrong direction — since the images were taken. The kitchen shown in the listing had been replaced with a smaller, cheaper fitout. The photos were from a previous tenancy cycle, possibly years old. She did not take the property.

A Pattern Across Growth Suburbs

The problem appears concentrated in Canberra's faster-growing northern suburbs. Residents of the Gungahlin town centre corridor — particularly around Hibberson Street and the Anthony Rolfe Avenue precinct — say multi-unit developments regularly recycle images from display units or earlier identical-floor-plan properties in the same complex. One prospective tenant described applying for a unit on Hinder Street, Gungahlin, based on photos showing a north-facing balcony with open sky views, only to attend an inspection and discover the balcony faced a concrete service wall installed during a neighbouring building's completion. The listing had used images from a unit three floors above.

The Belconnen Community Centre, which runs a free tenancy advice session every second Wednesday, has fielded a growing number of inquiries specifically about misleading listing images over the past two financial years. Staff there say the shift to fully online inspections during the pandemic normalised photo-only assessments, and some property managers never properly reverted to accurate, current imagery once in-person inspections resumed. The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, known as ACAT, does have jurisdiction over tenancy disputes, but community advisers note that challenging a lease already signed — rather than a listing that was merely misleading — is a much harder legal road.

What the Rules Actually Say

Under the ACT's Agents Act 2003, real estate agents are prohibited from engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct in the course of property transactions. The ACT Real Estate Institute has published general guidance for members on accurate advertising, but there is no specific regulatory requirement mandating that listing photographs be taken within a defined period before publication. That gap is where the problem lives.

Access Canberra, which handles licensing and complaints for real estate agents in the territory, received a recordable number of advertising-related complaints in the 2024–25 financial year, though specific figures broken down by complaint type were not publicly available at the time of publication. Consumer advocates say the complaints process itself is a deterrent — it takes time, requires documentation, and does nothing to help someone who needs a roof over their head in the next three weeks.

The practical advice from tenancy workers at the Belconnen Community Centre is straightforward: request a video walkthrough dated within the past 30 days before submitting any application, use Google Street View to cross-check external images, and ask the property manager directly, in writing, whether the listing photos reflect the current state of the property. That written response creates a paper trail if a dispute arises later. For anyone already in a property that does not match its listing, the first call should be to the Tenants' Union ACT on Brigalow Street, Watson — the service offers free initial advice and can help assess whether a compensation claim through ACAT is viable.