Is SMS Marketing Legal in Australian Real Estate? What Agents Need to Know

Every month, a real estate principal somewhere in Australia decides to run an SMS campaign, gets halfway through the setup, and hits the same question: is this actually legal?

The short answer is yes, SMS marketing is legal in Australian real estate. The longer answer is that it requires following three straightforward rules that, when built into your platform or process, become invisible overhead.

Here’s what the law requires and what it means practically for an agency running SMS prospecting.

The Legal Framework: Spam Act 2003

Commercial SMS messages in Australia are governed primarily by the Spam Act 2003which is administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The Act sets three requirements for any commercial electronic message (which includes SMS):

1. Consent
2. Identification
3. Unsubscribe mechanism

1. Consent

The recipient must have either express or inferred consent to receive commercial messages from you.

Express consent is explicit: the person actively agreed to receive marketing messages from your agency. A contact who ticked a box on a form saying “I consent to receive marketing communications from [Agency]” has given express consent.

Inferred consent applies when a person has provided their contact details in a business context and it would be reasonably expected that they might receive related messages. This is the consent type most relevant to real estate.

A buyer who signs into an open home and provides their mobile number has given inferred consent to receive messages from your agency related to property in that area. A homeowner who requested an appraisal has given inferred consent to receive follow-up from your office about the property market.

What this means for your database: The vast majority of contacts in a real estate agency’s CRM, open-home sign-ins, buyer enquiries, appraisal requests, referrals from past clients, have a documented inferred consent basis. The key is that the consent must be plausibly linked to the message content. Sending a property market update to someone who signed into an open home is covered. Sending an unrelated commercial promotion to the same contact would not be.

2. Identification

Every commercial SMS must clearly identify who is sending it. This means the message must include the sender’s name or trading name in either the Sender ID (the “From” field) or within the body of the message.

For real estate agencies, this is straightforward: if the message is sent from your agency name or includes your agency name in the opening line, you’re compliant.

3. Unsubscribe Mechanism

Every commercial SMS must include a way for the recipient to opt out of future messages. The standard approach is a simple instruction in the message: “Reply STOP to unsubscribe.”

When a contact opts out, that opt-out must be honoured immediately and completely, they should not receive further commercial messages from that number or Sender ID.

ACMA takes compliance with opt-out requests seriously. Multiple failures to honour opt-outs have resulted in enforcement action and significant fines.

The July 2026 Sender ID Changes

From 1 July 2026, ACMA is introducing a new requirement: alphanumeric Sender IDs (agency names appearing in the “From” field) must be registered with an approved Sender ID registry before being used for commercial SMS.

This doesn’t affect SMS sent from a standard phone number. It affects SMS sent from a registered name, for example, messages that arrive in the recipient’s phone as being from “Agency Name” rather than from a mobile number.

If your agency uses a named Sender ID, confirm with your SMS platform that it is being registered before the July deadline.

Frequently Asked Questions From Australian Agents

Can I send SMS to someone who gave me their number at an open home?

Yes. An open-home sign-in constitutes inferred consent for messages related to property in that area. The connection between the context (property enquiry) and the message (property-related updates or prospecting) is clear.

Can I send SMS to a database I purchased from a third party?

No. Purchased lists do not come with the consent required under the Spam Act, unless each contact in the list has specifically consented to receive messages from your agency. Marketing to a purchased list without verified consent is a compliance risk. Use only your own contacts, collected through your own interactions with those individuals.

Can I send SMS to past clients from several years ago?

Yes, with caveats. Inferred consent is generally considered to exist for a reasonable period following a commercial interaction. There is no fixed expiry date in the legislation, but the ACMA has indicated that relevance and recency both matter. A message to a buyer client from three years ago about current market conditions in the suburb where they bought is likely compliant. A generic commercial promotion to the same contact would be harder to justify.

What if someone replies asking to be removed?

Honour the request immediately and completely. Remove the contact from all future commercial SMS sending. This is a legal requirement, not a courtesy.

Do I need written consent records?

You don’t need to maintain a signed consent form for every contact, but you should be able to demonstrate the basis for consent if asked. CRM records showing how a contact was added (open-home registration, appraisal request, buyer enquiry) and when are typically sufficient.

What Built-In Compliance Looks Like

The cleanest approach to SMS compliance in real estate is to use a platform that handles the compliance layer for you, so you’re never in a position of manually tracking consent status, opt-out history, or Sender ID registration.

The right platform should:

• Check consent status before every send
• Include a compliant unsubscribe mechanism in every message
• Honour opt-outs immediately and permanently
• Send under your agency’s registered identity
• Maintain records of sent messages and opt-out history

If your current SMS setup requires you to manually manage any of these, it’s worth reviewing the process before your next campaign.