What Public Reserve Prices Mean for First Home Buyers

You've found the one. Three bedrooms, a decent yard, a short drive to the station. The ad says $620,000 to $680,000, so you book the building inspection, pay the conveyancer to read the contract and turn up on auction day ready.

Then the bidding sails past $700,000 and you go home with nothing but the receipts.

From this month, Victoria has changed the rules that made that Saturday so common.

What changed on 1 October

New price transparency laws started on 1 October 2026. Consumer Affairs Victoria lists three main changes for buyers:

• The Property Price Statement replaces the old Statement of Information.
• The seller's reserve price has to be published at least 7 days before an auction or fixed date sale.
• The final sold price has to be published once a sale goes unconditional.

The reserve rule applies to auctions and fixed date sales held on and from 16 October 2026.

How the reserve rule works

The reserve is the lowest price the seller has agreed to sell for at auction. Until now it was a secret between the seller and the agent.

Now the agent has to ask the seller for it ahead of time and publish it as a single dollar figure. No "from", no "offers over", no plus sign. It has to appear in the ads and in the Property Price Statement.

If the reserve hasn't been published for the full 7 days, the auction can't go ahead. And if the seller changes the reserve, up or down, the 7 day clock starts again.

One thing it isn't is a sale price. Plenty of homes will still sell above the reserve when two or three couples want the same place. The reserve tells you where the bidding has to get to, not where it stops.

What's in the new Property Price Statement

The statement is the first thing to look at once you like a place. It has to include:

• A price or range of no more than 10% between the low and high figures.
• The key features of the home, like bedrooms, bathrooms, car spaces, floor area and land size.
• Three comparable sales with their addresses, features, sale dates and prices.
• The suburb median for that type of property.
• The reserve, at least 7 days before the auction.

You can get it at the open for inspection, next to the price in the online ad, or from the agent within 2 business days of asking.

Thinking about what all this means for your own budget? You can book a chat and we'll work through it together.

Why the timing matters for your borrowing number

Here's where it connects to what we've been talking about this week. Rates rose at the end of September, and any borrowing figure worked out before that is likely out of date.

A published reserve gives you something solid to hold that number against. If the reserve is already past what you can borrow plus your savings, you know before you spend money on inspections and contract reviews. If it sits comfortably inside, you know the home is at least in play.

The trade-off? Fewer "maybe" homes on your list. But the ones left are ones you can actually chase.

Sold prices help you too

Once a sale goes unconditional, the agent has to add the sale price to the Property Price Statement and keep it online, free, for at least 18 months. Over time that builds a public record of what homes in your patch actually sold for.

So when you're weighing up a place in Tarneit or Melton, you can look at the reserve, then at what the comparable homes really went for. Less guessing. Fewer wasted Saturdays.

What hasn't changed

There's still no cooling off period when you buy at auction. Your deposit, your pre-approval and your finance still need to be sorted before you bid. And the Victorian first home buyer stamp duty exemption and the 5% Deposit Scheme work exactly as they did last month.

We've helped over 100 first home buyers into the market, and the ones who feel calmest on auction day are the ones who knew their number before they fell for the house.

If you'd like to know where your number sits right now, book a chat and we'll run it with you.

Let's get you into a home.

Figures verified 9 October 2026 against Consumer Affairs Victoria (Understanding property prices and underquoting for buyers, and New changes to property sales and underquoting laws).