Overview
- Domain filed Federal Court proceedings on Thursday accusing REA of misleading the market by saying realestate.com.au finds buyers for nine in ten properties listed on its site.
- REA says its statement rests on a PropTrack buyer impact model that analysed more than 1 million property sales from August 2023 to November 2025 and billions of user interactions and says Deloitte independently verified the methodology.
- Domain argues the model cannot prove the actual purchaser saw a property on REA before buying and says the claim implies a 90 per cent reach that could lead sellers to use only one advertising platform.
- REA has filed a cross-claim that challenges Domain’s own marketing figures for its Matterport 3D suite, saying those results came from a very small sample that got outsized national exposure.
- The court fight matters to home sellers who spend substantial sums on portal advertising because the judgment will test complex data‑science evidence, could constrain how portals advertise buyer impact, and may influence seller choices and competition scrutiny.