The “pre-listing inspection is the vendor’s problem” crowd has been wrong before. They were wrong when buyers started commissioning their own reports. They were wrong when review platforms started indexing every failed sale. And in 2026, with Victoria actively legislating mandatory vendor-provided inspections, they are more wrong than ever.
Skipping a pre-listing building and pest inspection is a very bad bet on nothing being found out. And in a market where independent property inspectors are the first call a serious buyer makes, that bet can have a preposterously poor track record.
The Star Rating Problem Nobody Talks About
These days, an agent’s online reviews are the first things people ascertain before making a move. Platforms like RateMyAgent and Google have made professional track records permanently searchable, and vendors tend to research agents before they make first contact.
A five-star average built over years of solid work does not protect against a single listing where something significant was missed, because the review that follows does not disappear.
It would be a massive understatement to say that public trust in real estate agents is down in the doldrums. The fact is that real estate agents already sit at a net trust rating of minus 22 per cent in the Governance Institute of Australia’s 2025 Ethics Index, the lowest of any profession surveyed. That is the baseline, by the way. That is what an agent is working with before anything goes wrong. When a buyer discovers that a defect existed before settlement and was never disclosed, that pre-existing distrust has somewhere to go. It goes on the record, publicly, and it stays there.
Agents who downplay defects to push deals across the line risk lasting damage to their credibility, their referral pipeline and their long-term career. One listing managed carelessly can take years to dilute with positive reviews, if it can be diluted at all.
Victoria Is Already Making Moves
The legislation has not passed yet, but the Allan Labor Government has committed to introducing mandatory vendor-provided building and pest inspection legislation to Parliament in 2027, requiring vendors to organise and pay for reports before a property is listed, with those reports made available to all prospective buyers.
The ACT has operated under this model for years. Victoria is following. And in the meantime, buyers have absorbed the message that inspection costs and responsibility are shifting toward the vendor’s side of the transaction. No more buyer’s beware for the housing market.
Government data puts 17 per cent of buyers currently purchasing without any inspection, largely due to cost, while 11 per cent have walked away from a property after seeing a report. That second figure matters. Buyers are already acting on inspection findings mid-campaign. So now, a pre-listing report means that reckoning happens before the board goes up, not during it.
Three Defects That Kill Sales and Generate the Worst Reviews
To be clear, not every defect ends a sale. Buyers can absorb a maintenance list. What they cannot absorb is the feeling of having been kept in the dark. These three issues account for a disproportionate share of collapsed campaigns and formal complaints:
1. Moisture and mould in wet areas.
A fresh coat of paint on a bathroom wall tells buyers nothing about what is behind it. Experienced inspectors carry moisture meters for exactly this reason, and elevated readings in a freshly renovated wet area are a massive red flag that no amount of staging can explain away. When potential buyers see a gap between what looked fine at the open home and what the report reveals, trust breaks down.
2. Active termites in the subfloor.
Termites cause more than $1.5 billion in damage to Australian homes every year. Subfloor access is not part of a standard buyer walkthrough, which means active workings can sit undetected right up until a qualified property inspector goes looking. When they do, average repair costs run between $5,000 and $10,000, and the sale is usually finished.
3. Structural cracks over 5mm.
At that width, a crack is no longer just a ‘crack’. It indicates movement and raises immediate questions about foundations and long-term integrity. Structural defects of this nature can cost tens of thousands of dollars to remediate. When a buyer’s inspector photographs one and the agent cannot reference a prior report that acknowledged it, the inference is straightforward. It was either missed or avoided.
What a Pre-Listing Inspection Actually Does
A thorough building and pest inspection before a property is listed does something no amount of polished marketing copy can replace. It gives the agent documented, credible knowledge of what they are selling before a buyer’s inspector shows up with their own agenda.
Working with a reputable firm like Home Pest Inspect before a property hits the market means any issues that surface can be handled on the vendor’s terms. When a buyer’s independent report largely confirms what has already been disclosed, trust is built at exactly the moment a buyer is deciding whether to proceed or not.
The Agents Who Move First Win
Property is one of the biggest financial decisions most people will ever make, and today’s clients are checking reviews and doing research before they make contact with an agent. Mandatory vendor inspections are coming regardless. The agents who build pre-listing due diligence into their SOPs now will be ready in 2027 when the legislation finally hits the market.
At the end of the day, the question is not whether buyers will scrutinise the property. They will. The question is whether the agent knew what was there first.
