'My home just disappeared': Canberra residents speak out on duplicate image errors wrecking real estate listings

When a Nicholls couple listed their four-bedroom home on a major property portal last month, the photographs that went live weren't of their house. They were of a two-bedroom unit in Charnwood, repeated six times across what was supposed to be their listing. By the time the error was caught and corrected, they had lost eleven days of prime winter market exposure — days they say they cannot get back.

Duplicate and mismatched property images have quietly become a source of real frustration for Canberra homeowners, renters and even prospective buyers navigating an ACT housing market where the median house price sits above $950,000, according to figures from the Real Estate Institute of the ACT's most recent quarterly report. In a city where public servants on fixed salaries are already stretched thin, a botched listing is not a minor inconvenience. It can mean the difference between a sale and a withdrawn property.

The problem is not new, but residents say it has intensified as real estate agencies and private sellers upload increasing volumes of photography through automated content management platforms. When those systems fail to correctly tag or deduplicate image files — often because photos are submitted in batches without unique metadata — the wrong images attach to the wrong listings, or the same image repeats multiple times, leaving prospective buyers scrolling through six identical shots of a laundry.

Gungahlin and Belconnen residents feel it most

Community Facebook groups for Gungahlin and the broader Belconnen district have hosted dozens of complaints in recent months from residents who noticed obvious photo errors on listings for properties in suburbs including Moncrieff, Macgregor and Page. Several residents described clicking on what appeared to be a modern townhouse near Gungahlin Town Centre only to find the gallery populated entirely with images of a different property — in one case, a property that had already sold.

A renter searching for accommodation near the University of Canberra's Bruce campus described spending three weekends attending inspections for properties whose photos bore no resemblance to what she found at the door. One listing showed a sunlit courtyard; the actual property faced a brick wall. She eventually found a place through the ACT's DirectConnect portal, but said the experience cost her around $400 in lost bond application fees and inspection travel across the north side of Canberra.

For sellers, the financial stakes are higher. The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal — ACAT — received a small but growing number of consumer complaints in 2025 relating to misleading property listings, though the tribunal does not publicly itemise photo-error cases as a distinct category. Real estate agents in the ACT are governed by the Agents Act 2003, which imposes obligations around accurate advertising, and the Australian Consumer Law also applies to material misrepresentations in property marketing.

What consumers can do right now

The ACT Office of Fair Trading, which sits within Access Canberra on Challis Street in Dickson, handles complaints about misleading property advertising. Residents can lodge a complaint online or in person, and the office can compel agents to correct listings or, in serious cases, refer matters for investigation. The process is free.

Property advocates suggest buyers and renters take a screenshot of any listing at the time they first view it, then cross-reference the photos against the property's street address using Google Street View before attending an inspection. It is a basic step, but one that can save a wasted trip across town to Belconnen or out to the Gungahlin corridor on a cold July Saturday morning.

Several residents told The Daily Canberra they had contacted the major portals directly — including through formal dispute channels — and received corrections within 48 hours once a detailed complaint was filed, including the listing reference number and a description of the specific duplicate images. The key, they said, was being specific. A vague report that something looked wrong rarely got traction. A reference number and a side-by-side comparison did.

The ACT government's Housing Strategy, released in 2024, focuses heavily on supply and affordability but does not address listing accuracy standards. Whether that gap warrants a policy response is a question the affected residents of Nicholls, Moncrieff and Page are increasingly asking out loud.