Fees and pricing
Buyer’s agent fees in Brisbane and South East Queensland
One fixed fee, set by the purchase price bracket, including GST, and locked at the bracket on your Form 6 appointment. Never a percentage, at any price. Work out yours below, then see what the same purchase would cost you with an agent charging a percentage.
- Fixed fee, GST included
- $1,990 to engage
- Never a percentage
- Locked at your bracket
Work out your fee
Residential property
Fee calculator
The price you expect to pay. Your fee is set by the bracket on your Form 6 appointment and does not move after that, in either direction.
Your bracket
$400,000 – $1,000,000
Fixed fee including GST, set at your Form 6 appointment and fixed from there.
Published fee schedule
IPS fees by purchase price
Every figure includes GST
| Purchase price | IPS fee |
|---|---|
| $400,000 – $1,000,000 | $9,990 |
| $1,000,001 – $1,600,000 | $12,990 |
| $1,600,001 – $2,200,000 | $18,990 |
| $2,200,001 – $2,800,000 | $24,990 |
| $2,800,001 – $3,400,000 | $30,990 |
| $3,400,001 and above | $36,990 |
This calculator is a guide to the published schedule, not a quote. The purchase price, the bracket and any broker saving are confirmed by an IPS team member, and under Queensland law every fee has to be set out in your Form 6 appointment before any work starts.
Getting started
The engagement fee is $1,990, and it is part of the fee — not on top of it
The fee in the table is the whole fee. $1,990 is payable at engagement and the balance falls due when your contract goes unconditional. On a $900,000 purchase that is $1,990 to start and $8,000 on the way through, for a total of $9,990 including GST.
The engagement fee covers the work that happens before there is a property to talk about: the strategy session, the brief, the suburb and budget work, and getting your finance position straight with your broker. It is the part of the job that has to happen whether or not we end up buying the first property we like.
It can be negotiated. If the split does not suit your circumstances, say so at the first conversation and we will work out something that does.
Want the fee and the split confirmed in writing for your own numbers? That is the first conversation, and it costs nothing.
Finance
A $1,190 saving if you use a broker we recommend
Arrange your lending through one of the brokers below and the fee comes down by $1,190, or by $2,190 on a purchase above $2.2 million.* On a $900,000 purchase that is $9,990 down to $8,800; on a $3 million purchase, $30,990 down to $28,800.
The reason is practical rather than promotional. When the buying and the borrowing are talking to each other, the pre-approval, the valuation and the settlement timetable stop pulling in different directions at the worst possible moment — and we are not waiting three days for an answer a broker could have given us in an hour.
The brokers we recommend
Three are at Moreton Bay Finance Broker and one at High Point Finance. Between them they cover first home buyers, upgraders, refinancing, investment lending, self-employed borrowers and SMSF. Ask us who would suit your situation, or go to them direct.
-
Ryan Leahy
Finance broker — Moreton Bay Finance Broker
Five years broking and fourteen as a property investor. First homes, upgrades and building a portfolio, with a calm manner and no surprises.
ryan@mbfb.com.au -
Lisa Holman
Finance broker — Moreton Bay Finance Broker
Eighteen years in financial services, six of them broking, and hundreds of clients settled. The one for a file that does not fit a template.
lisa@mbfb.com.au -
Daniel Fynch
Finance broker — Moreton Bay Finance Broker
First home buyers and refinancing. Good at making the difference between one lender’s policy and the next one plain, before it costs you an application.
dan@mbfb.com.au -
Kyle Downey
Principal broker — High Point Finance, Caboolture
Works across the greater South East Queensland region with first home buyers, upgraders, investors and anyone refinancing, across a panel of lenders.
kyle@highpointfinance.com.au 0493 010 111 highpointfinance.com.au
Moreton Bay Finance Broker — 1300 434 627. Moreton Bay Finance Pty Ltd ABN 49 647 569 104, Credit Representative 531707. High Point Finance — 0493 010 111. High Point Finance Pty Ltd ABN 21 697 085 920, Credit Representative 465290. Both are authorised under Australian Credit Licence 389328. Your full financial situation and requirements need to be considered before any loan product is offered or accepted.
The rest of the market
Three ways buyer’s agents charge, and what each one does to your interests
Almost every buyer’s agent in Brisbane charges one of three ways: a percentage of what you pay, a single flat fee, or a bracketed fee. The difference is not only what it costs you. It changes what your agent is paid to want.
1. A percentage of the purchase price
The traditional model, and still the most common among the large franchises. In Brisbane and the wider South East Queensland market it typically runs from 1.5% to 3% plus GST. On a $900,000 property a 2% fee is $18,000 plus GST — $19,800 all up. If the price is pushed to $1,000,000 in a competitive negotiation, that fee rises with it.
The argument for it is that a lower price means a lower fee, so the agent is aligned with you. The arithmetic says otherwise.
The same negotiation, two fee models
An agent on 3% can secure a property for $950,000, but knows the seller would take $1,000,000.
- At $950,000 the agent’s fee is $28,500.
- At $1,000,000 the agent’s fee is $30,000.
Talking you into $50,000 more earns them $1,500 for what is often one more phone call. You pay $50,000 to spare your agent a $1,500 pay cut.
On those same two numbers, our fee is $9,990 either way. We have nothing to gain from you paying more, which is the entire point of the structure.
This is not a claim that percentage-fee agents behave badly. Plenty are excellent. But the conflict is in the structure rather than the person, and you should know it is there before you sign.
2. One flat fee
A clear improvement. The fee is agreed before the search and does not move with the price, which removes the incentive entirely. In Brisbane, full-service flat fees typically run $12,000 to $22,000 plus GST.
What a single flat fee cannot do is reflect how different the work is. A $15,000 fee is fair on a complicated $2,000,000 purchase and steep on a straightforward $500,000 unit search. One number for every job means someone is always paying for work that was never done.
3. A bracketed fee — what we do
Our brackets take the certainty of a flat fee and price it to the job. You know the number before the search starts, it includes GST, and it is set by the bracket on your Form 6 appointment. After that it does not move: not if the purchase ends up above your bracket, and not if we negotiate it below one. What changes in that case is the price of the house, not our invoice.*
There is no price at which we charge a percentage. The brackets run all the way up: $30,990 between $2.8 and $3.4 million, and $36,990 above that, however far above it goes. A $4 million purchase and a $6 million purchase cost the same to engage us, because the work is the work. That is the whole argument on this page, and it would be worth very little if it ran out at the top.
Read the long version in how much a buyer’s agent costs in Brisbane in 2026, or the head-to-head in fixed fee versus percentage fee.
Like for like
What the same purchase costs under each model
Most agents quote plus GST and we quote including it, which makes a straight comparison misleading. Every figure below includes GST, so the columns are comparable. The flat-fee column uses $15,000, the example from our own write-up.
| Purchase price | IPS | Agent on 2% | $15,000 flat fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| $600,000 | $9,990 | $13,200 | $16,500 |
| $900,000 | $9,990 | $19,800 | $16,500 |
| $1,300,000 | $12,990 | $28,600 | $16,500 |
| $1,900,000 | $18,990 | $41,800 | $16,500 |
| $2,500,000 | $24,990 | $55,000 | $16,500 |
Against a 2% agent the gap widens with every dollar of purchase price, from about $3,200 at $600,000 to about $30,000 at $2,500,000 — because their fee grows with the price and ours does not. It keeps widening above the table: at $4 million our top bracket is $36,990 against $88,000 for an agent on 2% plus GST.
Against the flat fee the honest answer is that it crosses over. Above roughly $1.6 million a $15,000 flat fee is cheaper than our bracket. That is the trade we chose deliberately: a single flat fee is cheap at the top because it is not priced for the work, and expensive at the bottom for the same reason. Our brackets charge less than a flat fee on the purchases where there is less to do, and more on the ones where the due diligence, the comparables and the negotiation genuinely take longer.
Run your own number through the calculator, then book a time and we will tell you which bracket your brief actually lands in.
Priced to the job
Why a bracket is fairer than one number for every purchase
The work is not the same at every price point, and a fee structure that pretends otherwise is unfair to somebody. What actually changes as the budget rises:
- How many properties have to be assessed. At $600,000 in Moreton Bay there is real stock to work through. At $2.5 million in inner Brisbane there are a handful of genuine options a year, and most of the job is knowing about them before they are listed.
- How hard the due diligence is. Flood overlays, character and heritage controls, body corporate records, pools, retaining walls, acreage water and access, sloping sites — the higher the price, the more of these turn up on the one property.
- What a negotiating mistake costs. One per cent of $600,000 is $6,000. One per cent of $2.5 million is $25,000. The same error is worth four times as much.
- Who else is at the table. Above about $2 million you are regularly negotiating against other buyer’s agents rather than unrepresented buyers.
So the fee steps up with the scope of the work, in bands you can see before you start — and then stops moving. Within your bracket the number is the number, whatever we end up paying for the property.
What you get
What the fee covers
A low quote usually means a narrow scope, with the hard parts left to you. Everything below is included in the fee in the table, from the first conversation to the keys.
- Strategy and brief. Goals, budget, target suburbs, yield or growth requirements, and what we are not going to buy.
- Sourcing. Public listings, pre-market stock and genuine off-market opportunities through agent relationships built over years in the same patch.
- Inspections. Open homes and private viewings attended for you, with honest reporting on the ones that are not worth your time.
- Due diligence. Building and pest coordination, flood and overlay checks, zoning, body corporate where it applies, and comparable sales analysis.
- Negotiation. Auction bidding or private treaty, run on data rather than on how much you like the kitchen.
- Settlement support. Liaison with your broker, conveyancer and the selling agent through to handover.
If you only need part of this, say so — we also take on auction bidding and negotiation-only briefs, which carry a lower fee. See how we work for the detail.
What the fee has bought
The numbers behind it
- 128properties bought for clients since 2023
- 10.3%average growth in a client’s first 12 months
- 3–6 weekstypical time to find the property
- 42%of clients come back for the next one
IPS Buyer’s Agents is an REIQ Accredited Agency, and Tim Allen is a finalist in the buyers agent category at the REIQ Awards for Excellence 2026. You can read every review we have collected, including the ones from selling agents on the other side of our deals, on the reviews page, and the purchases written up in full under client success.
Common questions
Questions about the fee
Is the $1,990 engagement fee on top of the bracket fee?
No. It is the first instalment of it. A $900,000 purchase totals $9,990 including GST: $1,990 at engagement and $8,000 when the contract goes unconditional. The engagement fee can also be negotiated.
What happens if the price ends up in a different bracket?
Nothing — the fee is the one on your Form 6 appointment and it does not move either way. A client who engages us with a $1,000,000 limit stays on $9,990 even if their budget later stretches to about $1,040,000. And if we negotiate a purchase down below your bracket, the fee stays where it started too: what you get is a bigger discount on the property.*
Does the fee include GST?
Yes, every figure on this page includes it. Most agents quote plus GST, so when you are comparing quotes, add 10% to theirs before you put it next to ours.
When is the balance payable?
When your contract goes unconditional. Nothing beyond the engagement fee falls due before then, and nothing at all is payable until your Form 6 appointment is signed — Queensland law requires every fee to be set out in that appointment before any work starts.
Are buyer’s agent fees tax deductible?
For an investment property the fee is generally treated as a capital cost rather than an immediate deduction, which means it is added to the cost base and reduces capital gains tax when you sell. For an owner-occupied purchase it is not deductible. Your accountant should confirm how it applies to you — we are buyer’s agents, not tax advisers.
What if my budget is under $400,000?
We still take those searches on. The published brackets start at $400,000, so below that the fee is quoted to the brief and confirmed in writing before any work starts.
What about purchases over $2.8 million?
The brackets keep going. $30,990 from $2,800,001 to $3,400,000, and $36,990 from $3,400,001 up, with no ceiling above it. Both include GST, both are flat, and a broker we recommend takes $2,190 off either. We do not switch to a percentage at the top end: on a $4 million purchase our fee is $36,990 against roughly $88,000 for an agent on 2% plus GST.
More questions, 120 of them, on the buyer’s agent FAQ.
Next step
Get the fee for your own purchase, in writing
Tell us the budget and the brief and we will tell you the bracket, the split and what is included — before you commit to anything. Book a time that suits you, or send your details and we will come back to you.
The fine print
* Your fee is fixed at your Form 6 appointment. It does not change with the final purchase price, up or down. Terms and conditions apply — reach out and we will take you through the full detail before you sign anything.
IPS does not arrange your finance. We act for you on the purchase and nothing else. Your loan is arranged by your own broker, who gives you their own advice and is paid by the lender, not by us. One firm on both sides of the same purchase is a conflict of interest, and the simplest way to manage one is not to have it.
Related businesses. IPS Buyer’s Agents is a division of Moreton Bay Finance Pty Ltd, which also owns Moreton Bay Finance Broker. That is in the licence line at the foot of this page; we would rather you read it here. It does not shape the list — High Point Finance is a separate business — and it changes nothing about how your search is run.
The saving is not a condition. Bring your own broker and the published fee applies unchanged; the search runs identically either way. If you want the saving, say so before you sign — we confirm it applies to your situation and it goes on your Form 6 appointment. That is the number that counts, not the one on the calculator.