Their Homes Look Like Someone Else's: Wollongong Residents Speak Out on Duplicate Listing Images

Renters and vendors in Wollongong are raising the alarm about a persistent problem on major property listing platforms: photos that don't match the property being advertised. Duplicate images — the same photograph appearing on multiple listings, sometimes for homes kilometres apart — have become a recurring complaint from Crown Street to Fairy Meadow, with some prospective tenants turning up to inspections to find a property bearing no resemblance to what was listed online.

The issue has sharpened in recent months as Wollongong's rental market tightens. Vacancy rates in the Illawarra have been running below two per cent for an extended stretch, pushing renters to move fast on listings — sometimes paying holding deposits before completing an in-person inspection. That urgency is exactly where misleading imagery does the most damage.

What Residents Are Experiencing

Wollongong Community Legal Centre on Keira Street has fielded a growing number of inquiries from renters who feel they were misled by property photographs. The centre does not publish a breakdown of inquiry types, but staff there have publicly noted — at a February 2026 housing forum hosted by Wollongong City Council — that misrepresentation in digital listings is among the issues renters are increasingly raising in pre-tenancy consultations.

In the Gwynneville and Keiraville corridors near the University of Wollongong campus, student renters are a particularly exposed group. Many are searching for accommodation remotely — from interstate or overseas — and rely almost entirely on listing photos to make decisions. The UOW Student Representative Council flagged the problem in a submission to the NSW Rental Commissioner's office earlier this year, describing how students had signed lease agreements on the basis of images that turned out to belong to a different property managed by the same agency.

In Warrawong, a long-term renter described attending an inspection for a two-bedroom unit advertised with images of timber floorboards and a renovated kitchen, only to find carpet throughout and an unrenovated fitout from roughly the 1990s. The listed weekly rent was $440. The discrepancy wasn't resolved before the lease was signed. That kind of experience — arriving somewhere unfamiliar, with a tight timeline and few alternatives — is what community advocates say the data doesn't fully capture.

The Platform and Regulatory Picture

Under the NSW Residential Tenancies Act, landlords and agents have obligations not to make false or misleading representations about a property. Fair Trading NSW can investigate complaints and issue penalty notices, though enforcement against photographic misrepresentation specifically has been inconsistent, according to tenants' advocates. Redfern Legal Centre published a guide in March 2026 noting that complaints about digital listings remain under-reported partly because tenants fear jeopardising their tenancy.

Wollongong City Council's housing strategy, adopted in late 2024, targets the delivery of additional dwellings across identified infill zones including Fairy Meadow, Corrimal and Dapto by 2030. None of those targets address listing quality directly — that sits with state government and platform operators — but local advocates argue the two issues are linked. When the supply is tight, bad actors face fewer consequences for low-quality listings because renters have no real ability to walk away.

The major platforms — Domain and realestate.com.au — both operate image verification and duplicate-detection systems, but neither has publicly disclosed the rate at which duplicates are identified and removed before a listing goes live.

For renters navigating this right now, the Wollongong Community Legal Centre recommends doing a reverse image search on any listing photos before paying a holding deposit, requesting a video walkthrough from the agent if an in-person inspection isn't possible, and lodging a formal complaint with NSW Fair Trading if photographs prove materially misleading after a lease is signed. Fair Trading's online complaint portal accepts submissions with attached screenshots and listing URLs, which advocates say significantly strengthens a case. The centre's drop-in hours on Keira Street run Tuesday and Thursday mornings.