How it works
The phone round, rebuilt as market infrastructure.
Six drawings, one product. This page walks the whole machine — who's on each side of the marketplace, how access is earned, how a round actually runs from listing to audit pack, and exactly how much of the bidding each buyer gets to see.
01 — THE MARKETPLACE
Two sides. One room. Everything on the record.
A vendor appoints a licensed agent. The agent opens a structured round on Bidline. Finance-verified buyers — and buyer's agents on verified client mandates — bid into it as masked paddles. Every bid is written into a chain, each one carrying a SHA-256 hash of the bid before it, and the round's events are logged alongside that chain and retained to meet Australian record-keeping obligations.
A vendor appoints a licensed agent
The agent's licence number, state and expiry are recorded at sign-up and checked by a person against the relevant state register before a first listing publishes.
The agent opens one round on one listing
Four things are settled before it opens and snapshotted at open: the format, from the agent's choice of four; the visibility, composed by the agent; what a bid carries, which is price and terms together; and how bidders appear, which is always a paddle number.
Finance-verified buyers bid in as masked paddles
A pre-approved buyer bids against a banded tier — “up to $2.5M” — and a buyer's agent bids on a verified client mandate. Offers come back to the agent the same way, and no name appears on either side of the round.
The record is written as the round runs
Every bid is written into a chain, each carrying a SHA-256 hash of the bid before it, so altering an amount after the fact breaks every hash downstream of it. The round's own events are logged alongside that chain and kept to meet Australian record-keeping obligations.
02 — ACCESS
Three levels of access. Earned, not assumed.
Everyone can see that a market exists. Only the verified can act in it. Agents are licence-checked against the state register within 24 hours; buyers climb by verifying — and a buyer's pre-approval becomes a banded tier with an expiry, never a number an agent can see.
- Tier 1 · Anonymousno account
- Listing cards only — suburb, price guide, yield and the round's countdown. No photos, and the address stays greyed.
- Tier 2 · Registeredemail + mobile OTP
- The full gallery and any video tour unlock. Watch a listing and express interest. Still cannot bid.
- Tier 3 · Verified buyerpre-approval reviewed by a person
- A banded tier — “up to $2.5M” — that lets you bid in any round and open the documents the agent has gated. The street address is released on an accepted bid, and only to that bidder.
03 — ANATOMY OF A ROUND
From quiet listing to audit pack, in seven moves.
Scroll through a round the way it actually runs. This is the open-format version — sealed and EOI rounds follow the same spine with the visibility forced dark until close.
The listing goes up — behind the login
Suburb-level only. Mandatory price guide (NSW underquoting-aligned), mandatory yield, mandatory interior and exterior video. No portal, no Google footprint, no street address.
Paddington NSW · guide $1.8M–$1.95M · yield 2.8% est.
The agent sets the audience
All verified buyers in the region, or a hand-picked invite list. Watchers and expressed interest surface as demand the agent can see before any round opens.
12 watching · 4 expressed interest
The round opens — rules snapshot
Format, visibility, reserve, increment, window: locked onto the round at open. Nothing can shift underneath bidders mid-round, and every later change by the agent is itself audited.
Format A · Leading-only · 48h window · reserve hidden
Verified buyers bid — price and terms
Every bid carries settlement days, deposit and conditions next to the number, plus a snapshot of the bidder's banded finance tier. Bidders appear to each other only as paddle numbers. Bids are immutable — no edits, no withdrawals.
Paddle #4 · $1,862,000 · 30 days · 10% · verified to $2.5M
The final stage outlaws sniping
Any bid inside the last five minutes extends the clock, so a last-second bid always leaves the field time to answer. Extensions cap at 60 minutes — a real contest finishes, nobody holds the round hostage.
19:58 bid → close extends · 20:03 bid → extends again
Close — the vendor decides
Accept, counter, decline, or pass in. The vendor compares whole offers, not just the top number. Bidline has sent the agent a push alert on every bid along the way, and the round holds the record of each one.
Accepted: Paddle #4 — best price and clean terms
Reveal, contract, audit pack
The accepted buyer gets the address; the agent gets the buyer's real identity; contracts execute off-platform under normal conveyancing. The round closes with a record a regulator can read: the bid chain re-verified hash by hash, and every logged round event beside it. Retained to meet Australian record-keeping obligations.
9bb0f3… → 832dd6… → 3f8175… ✓ chain intact
04 — FOUR FORMATS
Different assets sell differently. The agent picks the theatre.
A hot tenanted investment wants an open competitive run. A prestige home wants a silent tender. A sensitive vendor wants a quiet inbox. A development site wants capability-weighted EOIs. One platform, four formats — chosen per round.
Open Round
Hot, comparable stock — momentum sets the price
Ascending live bids · dynamic close · anti-snipe
Sealed Round
Prestige or hard-to-value — discretion wins
Confidential offers by deadline · best price + terms
Contact agent
Sensitive vendor — control without an event
No bid round · buyers deal with the agent directly
Expression of Interest
Development sites — capability matters
Sealed, document-heavy, longer window
05 — VISIBILITY
How much can bidders see? That's a dial, not a rule.
Four independent controls — bidder count, bid amounts, own rank, public leading bid — composed per round by the listing agent, snapshotted at open. “Show the count but hide the amounts.” “Only the number to beat.” Fully open. Fully sealed. Try the presets — this is the real control surface agents use.
In every configuration bidders stay paddle-masked, and sealed or EOI rounds force everything dark until close — by design, not convention.
Agent console · Round visibility — try it
Bidder count
show how many qualified bidders are in
Bid amounts
Own rank
“leading” / “you are 2nd” / “outbid”
Public leading bid
broadcast the leading bid on the listing card
What a qualified buyer sees
3-bed house · Paddington NSW
12 qualified bidders
Leading bid A$1,862,000
Your position: outbid — improve to lead
Public listing card shows: bidding underway
Buyers know the number to beat — not everyone's hand. Settings snapshot onto the round at open and cannot shift under bidders mid-round.
06 — THE CONSTANTS
Whatever the format, six things never move.
- Bids are immutable
- No edits, no quiet withdrawals. What the vendor compares is what each buyer committed.
- Every bid is price and terms
- Settlement, deposit, conditions and a finance-tier snapshot travel with the number.
- Identities stay masked
- Paddle numbers all round. The agent learns the real name only on acceptance — the buyer learns the address the same way.
- Finance privacy is banded
- Agents see “verified to $2.5M, expires March” — never the lender, never the exact figure.
- Bids are non-binding
- Contracts execute off-platform with lawyers involved, as Australian property law expects. Bidline never touches funds.
- Everything is on the record
- Every bid is written into a chain, each carrying a SHA-256 hash of the bid before it. Extensions, reveals and admin actions are logged alongside that chain and kept to meet Australian record-keeping obligations.
See it with real rounds running.
The fastest way to understand Bidline is to stand in the deal room.