Who's the Best Real Estate Agent in Kew, Victoria?

We ran 65 prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity to find out which real estate agents AI recommends in Kew, Victoria. The answers weren't random — but they weren't what a traditional Google search would show you either.

This is the first in our RealIQ suburb snapshot series: real measurement of what AI says about your market, so agencies can see where they stand and what to fix.

Suburb snapshot: Kew, Victoria

Kew sits about six kilometres east of the Melbourne CBD, in the City of Boroondara. Tree-lined streets, grand Victorian and Edwardian homes, the Yarra bends along its northern edge, and a school catchment list that does a lot of heavy lifting at auction — Trinity Grammar, Carey Baptist, Genazzano, MLC, Xavier.

• Roughly 25,000 residents, heavily skewed to families and established professionals
• A prestige market: period homes, large blocks, and a steady stream of downsizers and upgraders
• Blue-chip and competitive — a handful of long-established agencies have owned the postcode for decades
• Buyers here research hard, and increasingly that research starts in an AI chat window, not a portal

It's exactly the kind of suburb where reputation is supposed to be settled. Which makes it a very good place to test whether AI agrees with the local consensus.

At a glance

• 65 prompts analysed, 260 total AI responses, 4 platforms reviewed
• Top recommended agencies: Jellis Craig (43%), Marshall White (34%), Nelson Alexander (28%)
• Top recommended agents: James Tostevin, Richard Winneke, Sophie Su
• Notable mentions: Kay & Burton (prestige leader), HEAVYSIDE (strong reviews)
• When AI was asked which agency to trust, the winner changed
• Price estimates for the same property varied by roughly $300,000 across engines

Percentages are named mentions across 196 responses to 49 recommendation prompts. Report date: July 2026.

A quick note on the numbers: they don't add to 100% because a single AI response often named more than one agency. These are mention rates across answers, not market share.

What we measured

We used a mix of generic and specialist prompts designed to mirror how a vendor or buyer in Kew might actually ask AI for help:

• Who is the best real estate agent in Kew, Victoria?
• Top property managers in Kew
• Best agent for luxury homes in Kew
• Best agent for family homes in Kew
• Best agent for investment properties in Kew
• What is my Kew property worth?

We recorded which agencies and agents were named, how often, and what reasoning the engines gave. We did not score agencies ourselves — every result below is a measurement of what the AI engines produced.

What the engines said: top recommended agencies

When asked the open question, "Who is the best real estate agent in Kew?", the engines most often named three agencies:

• Jellis Craig — named in 43% of responses
• Marshall White — named in 34% of responses
• Nelson Alexander — named in 28% of responses

Kay & Burton and HEAVYSIDE also earned notable mentions — Kay & Burton as the prestige leader, HEAVYSIDE on the strength of its reviews.

Top recommended agents

Individual names came through just as clearly as office names:

• James Tostevin
• Richard Winneke
• Sophie Su

Tim Heavyside and Shannan Burbidge also appeared regularly. Personal authority still matters — and because it's fragmented, individual agents have real room to move.

Why AI recommends them

The engines gave their reasoning. Five themes came up again and again:

• Strong local authority — recognised as Kew market experts
• Proven sales performance — a consistent track record of results
• Positive client reviews — high ratings and strong feedback
• Frequent mentions — cited across multiple AI platforms
• Expertise in the Kew market — deep knowledge of local area and trends

The key insight: trust questions have a different winner

Marshall White is the second most-named agency in Kew overall — and falls to fifth when AI is asked which agency sellers should trust. Kay & Burton and HEAVYSIDE both climb past it on a fraction of the sales volume.

Read that again. On the questions vendors actually care about, reviews are outperforming market share.

The price gap: same suburb, very different numbers

When we asked for property value estimates, the engines produced a wide range — roughly $300,000 apart for the same Kew address. That tells us AI isn't a single authoritative source; it's a collection of models drawing on different data. For vendors, that creates confusion. For agents, it's an opportunity to show up as the local authority that cuts through the noise.

What Kew agents should take from this

1. The most-mentioned agency doesn't own every door. Jellis Craig leads the generic "best agent in Kew" prompt, but the trust question goes elsewhere. There's still room to claim a niche and make it yours.
2. Specialist prompts are wide open. When buyers asked for specific needs — family homes, luxury, investment — the same three names didn't always appear. A clear specialty positioning, backed by consistent online evidence, is the fastest way into those answers.
3. Reviews are doing heavy lifting. Sales volume gets you named. Reviews get you trusted. Those are two different jobs, and most agencies only work on one of them.
4. Close the perception gap. The distance between your actual track record and what AI thinks you've done is where the work lives. Your job is to shrink it.
5. Fourth place is invisible. Being fourth in Google still gets you seen. Being fourth in AI gets you ignored. The front page is now three names, not ten — visibility isn't a ranking problem anymore, it's a citation problem.
6. AI isn't a search tool. It's a recommendation tool. One that vendors are increasingly turning to — and, more importantly, trusting at record levels.

What this means for your agency

If you work in Kew and your agency wasn't in these answers, the issue usually isn't your sales ability. It's that AI can't assemble enough consistent, trustworthy signals about you to include you in the shortlist.

That changes the job from "rank higher" to "become citable":

• Clear, consistent agency information across directories, your website and your listings
• Specialty pages and content that match how people actually ask
• Local proof points: sold results, suburb expertise, agent profiles
• Reviews you actively earn, because the engines are reading them
• Structured data so engines can understand who you are, what you do and where you do it

Want to see what AI says about you?

Start with a free AI visibility audit. We'll run the same prompts for your suburb and show you exactly where you appear, where you don't, and what to fix first.

No pitch. Just the data.