General information only, current at September 2026. Portal specifications change — confirm current requirements with your agent or the portal's own help documentation before your campaign goes live.
Both major Australian portals want 4:3 images. Domain specifies 1600 × 1200 pixels for project and new development listings, JPEG format. realestate.com.au works to a similar standard, with 2000 × 1500 in 4:3 recommended and anything under 800 × 600 generally rejected.
Your renders almost certainly aren't in 4:3. That's the problem this article exists to solve.
Domain: project and new development listings
Domain publishes its specifications for project listings directly:
- Size: 1600px wide × 1200px high
- Optimum ratio: 4:3
- File type: JPEG or JPG
- File size: up to 10MB supported, though limiting to 3MB is suggested
These images appear in search results, the galleries on project and listing detail pages, eBrochures and Home Alerts — so a single badly cropped hero image propagates across every surface a buyer sees.
One structural quirk worth knowing: the floorplan button only appears on the New Development listing detail page, not the Project page. A floorplan can still be uploaded to a Project, but as an ordinary image in the gallery rather than as a floorplan.
realestate.com.au
Widely published guidance for REA listings:
- Recommended: 2000 × 1500 pixels in 4:3
- Minimum: 800 × 600 — below this, images are generally rejected, as are files under 500KB
- Maximum file size: 5MB per image
- Formats: JPEG, PNG, and static GIF
- Colour mode: RGB. CMYK is not supported
- Resolution: standard web quality, 72 DPI
Undersized images aren't always rejected outright — they may publish with a dark border around them, which looks like a mistake because it is one.
Floorplans have their own conventions: static GIF with a white background rather than transparent. If your listings are fed through an agency CRM rather than uploaded manually, floorplan files over roughly 100KB can cause feed errors, so it's worth asking your floorplan supplier to keep them small.
Why your renders won't drop straight in
Three mismatches, all of them predictable and all of them avoidable if you raise them before delivery.
Ratio. Renders are typically composed and delivered at 16:9 or a wider cinematic crop, because that's what suits a website hero, a brochure spread and a presentation. Both portals want 4:3. Cropping 16:9 down to 4:3 removes roughly a quarter of the frame — and because the image was composed for the wider ratio, what gets cut is usually the part the composition was built around. Skies get clipped, buildings lose their top floor, the approach to the entry disappears.
Colour mode. Print deliverables are frequently CMYK. REA doesn't support it. This one produces upload failures rather than bad crops, so at least it's obvious.
File size, in both directions. Print-resolution renders are far too large and will be rejected. But over-compressing to get under the limit produces visible banding in skies and gradients, which is exactly where architectural renders show it worst. The target is a properly resized image at web resolution, not a print file squeezed down.
What to ask for at delivery
The fix costs nothing if you ask before the renders are finalised, and costs a re-export if you ask after.
Request each hero image in two crops from the same render: the wide version for your website, brochure and signage, and a 4:3 version composed for that ratio rather than cropped down to it. A render composed for 4:3 is not the same image with the sides removed — the camera and framing change.
Then ask for portal-ready exports: 2000 × 1500, RGB, JPEG, under 5MB. Those files will satisfy both portals, since Domain's 1600 × 1200 is the same ratio and will downscale cleanly.
Which image goes first
The lead image is doing most of the work. On both portals it's what appears in search results, and for an off-the-plan project it's usually the only thing a buyer sees before deciding whether to click.
For a small residential development, the strongest lead image is generally the exterior that shows the dwelling in context — the approach, the street presence, the scale relative to neighbours. Interiors convert well once someone is already in the gallery, but they rarely earn the click, because every listing has a kitchen and they all look similar at thumbnail size.
Put the floorplan late in the gallery, not early. Buyers who've decided they're interested want it. Buyers still deciding are stopped by it.