Spring 2026 Property Market Australia: Fewer New Listings, More Homes Still on the Market — The Two Springs Buyers Need to Tell Apart

Published: 5 September 2026

Last updated 5 September 2026 · Data as at 4 September 2026 (details in the box below)

Source: as listed per row. Cotality listings are 28-day rolling counts of properties advertised for sale across the eight capitals; SQM counts all residential listings advertised during the calendar month, including properties withdrawn within the month. The two are not level-comparable.

Every September the property press runs the same story: spring is here, the listings flood is coming, buyers will finally have choice. In 2026 that story is half right, and the half that is backwards is the half that matters for anyone deciding whether to transact in the next three months.

The half that is right is that buyers have choice and time. Total advertised stock across the capitals is 24% higher than a year ago on Cotality's count and 8% above its five-year average, the median home takes a week longer to sell than it did last spring, and fewer than half of auctions clear once final results settle. Cotality's research director Tim Lawless describes those conditions as “a buyer's market” in the August Home Value Index.

The half that is backwards is where the choice is coming from. Fresh listings across the capitals are running 6% below last year and 8% below the five-year average on Cotality's 28-day count, and in Sydney they are down 16% on both Cotality's and SQM's numbers. As Lawless puts it, “higher advertised stock levels are simply a factor of a slower rate of absorption.” Homes listed in autumn and winter are still on the portals in September.

Underneath that national picture sit two different springs, which is our classification rather than Cotality's or SQM's. Sydney, and on Cotality's count Melbourne, are seeing fewer sellers and older stock. Brisbane and Adelaide are seeing vendors list more than last year into a thinner bid, with total stock up by a quarter to a half depending on the provider. This article works through both, then turns to what a buyer, an investor or a seller should do with a spring that looks like this.

If You Only Read One Table: What to Do This Spring

Source: Our framework, applied to Cotality HVI and Property Market Indicator data to 30 August 2026, SQM Research August listings, and bank forecasts as at 4 September 2026. General information, not personal advice.

What Changed Since Spring 2025

Spring is the busiest listing season of the Australian property year because vendors time campaigns for warmer weather and the pre-Christmas settlement window, and new listings normally build from late August to a peak before the Melbourne Cup. Spring 2025 was an unusually strong version of that pattern, and it is the year-ago comparison every 2026 statistic is measured against.

Source: Cotality Home Value Index August 2026; Cotality Property Market Indicator Summary, weeks ending 30 August 2025 and 2026; Cotality Housing Chart Pack August 2026; ABS Lending Indicators June quarter 2026; RBA. Spring 2025 listings described directionally where the exact 2025 count is not published in the 2026 release.

The 2025 backdrop matters because it explains the year-on-year arithmetic. Total listings are up 24% partly because last spring's stock was unusually low; new listings are down 6% against a base that was itself weak. Neither comparison says spring 2026 is a supply flood. Both say the composition of what is on the market has changed: less of it is fresh, and more of it has been sitting.

Spring 2026 by the Numbers: New Listings, Total Listings and Carried-Over Stock

Three terms are used consistently through this article. New listings are properties first advertised in the period (Cotality excludes anything advertised in the prior 75 days; SQM counts fresh advertisements in the calendar month). Total listings are everything advertised in the period, new and carried over. Carried-over stock, or stale stock, is total minus new: properties still advertised from earlier periods. Carried-over stock is a listings measure, not an independently verified count of unsold dwellings; some of it will be under offer or withdrawn.

Source: Cotality Property Market Indicator Summary, data to week ending 30 August 2026; five-year comparisons from Cotality Home Value Index, August 2026. Carried-over stock is our derivation and indicative only.

Three things stand out.

The flow is weak. Cotality's Gerard Burg, commenting on the four weeks to 23 August, put national new listings 8.2% below the five-year average and 2% below 2025's depressed level, and said “this spring could prove to be cooler than the past, with potential vendors assessing a market with falling values, cautious and constrained buyers, and an uncertain rates outlook.”

The stock is old. Roughly three-quarters of the properties in Cotality's 30 August window were first advertised more than 28 days earlier. Cotality's August chart pack (three months to July) had the median capital-city listing taking 33 days to sell, up from 26 a year earlier; the national median was 35 days, up from 32 the month before. NAB's August Housing Monitor put median days on market at 34, a five-year high.

Sales have fallen further than prices. Cotality's quarterly estimate of home sales is 15.5% below the same time last year and 11.5% below the five-year average, with Brisbane, Perth and Sydney all down more than 20%. NAB estimates the seasonally adjusted turnover rate fell to 4.1% of dwelling stock in July from 5.2% a year earlier. Prices are 3.6% off their peak nationally; transaction volumes are off several times that.

SQM Research's August release, published 1 September, uses a different method and adds two things. Its national count eased 3.3% in August to 269,717 after July's strong rise while staying 12.8% above a year ago, with new listings up 3.1% year on year and older listings (more than 180 days) 0.6% higher. And SQM's distressed listings rose 4.2% in the month to 4,510, 10% above August 2025 and about 1.7% of total listings; SQM's reading is that the rise “does not in itself indicate widespread mortgage distress” but “warrants close monitoring.”

Two Springs, Not One: Where the Stock Is Coming From

The city breakdown is the most important table in this article, and it needs both providers side by side because they disagree on two cities.

Source: Cotality Property Market Indicator Summary, 28 days ending 30 August 2026; SQM Research, Total Property Listings August 2026 (released 1 September 2026). Cotality counts properties advertised over a rolling 28-day window across the eight capitals; SQM counts all listings advertised during the calendar month, including those withdrawn within it. Classifications are ours, not the providers'.

Sydney: the one city both providers agree on

Roughly one in six Sydney vendors who listed at this point last year has not listed this year, on either count. Cotality's Burg put Sydney's new listings more than 14% below the five-year average over the four weeks to 23 August, with the pull-back sharpest in the eastern suburbs, north shore and inner west. Those are the segments where values have fallen furthest: Sydney is 7.1% below its February peak on the August HVI, and its houses fell 1.8% in August against 0.4% for units.

An owner who does not need to sell is looking at a market 7% below February, a final clearance rate of 51.5% for the week to 30 August, and a rates outlook that may add 25 basis points to buyers' costs mid-campaign. Waiting costs nothing visible. Yet total stock is up 13% on both counts, and SQM has Sydney's older listings up 18% year on year. Sydney's total-to-new ratio in Cotality's 30 August window was about 4.2 listings on market for every fresh one; a year earlier it was about 3.1. The stock build is predominantly carried-over stock.

Melbourne: stale stock either way

Cotality has Melbourne's new listings down 16.6% year on year in its 28-day window; SQM has them up 2.4% for the month. The two methods and windows differ, so we do not treat Melbourne as a confirmed vendor strike. What both agree on is the composition: SQM has Melbourne's older listings up 13% year on year and total stock up 22%, the largest increase among the big two. Melbourne's final clearance rate of 53.7% for the week to 30 August was the best of the capitals, but it is holding in the low-to-mid 50s on a median value that Cotality puts 6.8% below the March 2022 record and roughly 6% below the November 2025 cyclical peak.

Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth: vendors listing into a thinner bid

Brisbane and Adelaide look different on every measure. Both providers have total stock up by a quarter or more year on year, Cotality has new listings up 6% and 20%, and Adelaide is the only major capital where Cotality has new listings running above the five-year average. Perth is a supply build on Cotality's numbers (new +21%, total +51%) but a modest one on SQM's (total +6%, older listings −20% year on year), so we hold the Perth call more loosely.

The total-to-new ratio tells the second half of the story. On Cotality's count Brisbane has 4.0 listings on market for every fresh one (2.8 a year ago), Adelaide 3.0 (2.6) and Perth 3.4 (2.7), against Sydney's 4.2 (3.1). Vendors in the boom capitals are listing more, but most of the extra stock is still carried over from earlier weeks; the supply build is turning stale too.

Two forces are at work: profit-taking after extraordinary runs (five-year growth of 79.7% in Perth, 64.1% in Brisbane and 64.0% in Adelaide on Cotality's August HVI), and a later turn. All three peaked in April or May 2026 and posted a second consecutive monthly fall of close to 1% in August (Adelaide's steepest of the cycle; Brisbane and Perth eased only slightly from July's revised −1.2% and −1.3%), so vendors are pricing off annual growth of 8.6 to 15.6% that no longer describes the market they are selling into. Brisbane's final clearance rate for the week to 30 August was 27.4%, the weakest of any capital, and SQM has distressed listings up 25% year on year in Queensland, 40% in Western Australia and 51% in South Australia, from low bases.

Why Vendors Are Holding Back in the Big Two

Falling values. A vendor whose home was worth $1.3 million in February and is worth $1.21 million on the August index does not experience that as a 7% fall; they experience it as $90,000 they would be “giving away.” Cotality's Burg: “Those owners that can afford to wait for stronger market conditions may make that choice, leading to a continuation of the weaker trend in new listings.”

Longer selling times. A median of 33 days in the capitals, and longer for upper-quartile stock, means a September campaign may not settle until Christmas.

The rates outlook. The ABS July CPI (released 26 August) showed headline inflation at 3.5% but a monthly trimmed-mean rise of 0.5%, the largest in a year, and moved three of the four majors to forecast a fourth hike: NAB for 29 September, CBA and ANZ for November, with Westpac expecting a hold through 2026. Every vendor reading that knows a hike trims their buyers' borrowing capacity mid-campaign.

The tax-reform transition. Under the reforms that received Royal Assent on 26 June 2026, rental losses on established dwellings acquired after 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026 can no longer be deducted against wages or other non-property income from 1 July 2027; they are quarantined to residential property income and capital gains and carried forward. Properties acquired before that moment keep their existing treatment for as long as the current owner holds them. For a negatively geared investor, selling hands that status away, and the next buyer cannot replicate it. That is a structural reason for investor-owned established stock to stay off the market, on top of the cyclical ones. The separate CGT change from 1 July 2027 replaces the 50% discount with an inflation-indexed cost base and a 30% minimum-tax test for gains accruing after that date, with a deemed disposal preserving the current treatment of earlier growth; it does not force a sale before 2027. Our negative gearing transition rules guide covers both mechanisms.

The Auction Floor: Finals, Withdrawals and Pass-Ins

Cotality publishes preliminary clearance rates on Sunday evenings and final rates midweek once every result is collected. Finals typically settle three to five percentage points lower, and they are the series to use for comparison over time. The preliminary 52.4% widely reported for the last weekend of winter became a final 49.5%. Everything below uses finals unless labelled otherwise.

Source: Cotality final auction clearance release, 3 September 2026. Perth (9) and Tasmania (2) held too few auctions to rate.

Three readings from the floor:

The sub-50 regime is established. Cotality's final series has cleared 50% only once since late May: the combined rate bottomed at 42.3% in June, reached a 12-week high of 51.4% for the week ending 9 August, then slipped back to 48.9%, 48.2% and 49.5% for the last weekend of winter. Melbourne's finals have held in the low-to-mid 50s for a month; Sydney's preliminary rate has held above 55% for four weeks but finalises in the low 50s. Neither is a recovery. Both describe a market clearing by negotiation rather than competition.

Withdrawals flatter the headline. On Cotality's preliminary results for 30 August, as compiled in our 30 August market update, 274 auctions were withdrawn across the capitals, 18.5% of the scheduled book and the most since late May; in Sydney the figure was 127, or 24.6% of scheduled auctions. A withdrawn auction never registers as a failure. Cotality's final release had pass-ins exceeding withdrawals, which it read as vendors and buyers still misaligned on price.

Cleared sales are happening before auction day. On Cotality's preliminary results for the last weekend of winter, Sydney recorded 134 sales prior to auction against 96 under the hammer. When a market clears by pre-auction negotiation, the auction is functioning as a deadline for a private sale, and the buyer with a firm offer and finance in place is setting the price.

The volume test arrives now. Winter volumes were down about 25% in Sydney and 19% in Melbourne on a year earlier, and Cotality expects the books to lift toward 1,600 and then 1,700 over the next two weekends. If finals hold near 50% as volumes rise by a third, buyer depth is better than winter suggested. If they slide toward the low 40s, the carried-over stock deepens into October. For Melbourne specifically, our four-signals framework for Melbourne buyers uses a final clearance rate holding above 55% for four straight weeks as its first buy signal; at 53.7% it is close and not met.

Days on Market, Vendor Discounting and What They Do and Do Not Mean

Source: Cotality Housing Chart Pack, August 2026 edition (July data); NAB Housing Market Monitor, August 2026 (4 August).

A 3.9% median discount means the typical successful capital-city negotiation this winter closed almost 4% below the vendor's first asking price. On the combined-capitals median dwelling value of $990,394 that is about $38,600; on Sydney's $1,222,718 median, where the chart pack has discounting widest at 4.2%, it is about $51,000. Those are medians of completed sales. Half of all discounts were larger, and vendors who did not sell are not in the sample.

Our guide to negotiating off the asking price in a buyer's market, published in June, documented where larger discounts were being found in Sydney and Melbourne: listings past 45 days on market, listings with at least one published price reduction, and properties withdrawn from auction and relisted. Discounts there were commonly 3 to 8% and occasionally reached double digits. That guide described where flexibility concentrated in a falling market; it is not a market-wide statistic and not a target.

The turnover data adds a warning for anyone planning to sell later: at 4.1%, roughly one dwelling in twenty-four changes hands a year, down from one in nineteen, and exit assumptions built on 2024–25 liquidity need revisiting.

Capital by Capital: Buyer Conditions in Every City

Source: Cotality Home Value Index August 2026 (values, from-peak, yields); Cotality final clearance release 3 September 2026; Cotality PMI 30 August and SQM Research August 2026 (listings ranges); SQM Research national vacancy July 2026. From-peak is Cotality's measure from each city's record high; the chart pack notes Melbourne's cyclical peak was November 2025 at about $840,000. Buyer-conditions column is our interpretation.

What This Means for Prices Through Spring

Prices are the lagging indicator. Listings and clearance move first; the index follows. The latest complete reading is the August HVI, released 1 September, which we analyse in the companion Cotality Home Value Index August 2026 analysis and track on the Cotality Home Value Index tracker.

Source: Cotality Home Value Index, August 2026 (released 1 September 2026). “From peak” is Cotality's published measure from each market's record high. First prints are provisional; this release revised July's national fall from −0.7% to −1.2%.

Sydney is 7.1% below its February peak, which Cotality notes is a faster decline than at the equivalent stage of the 2022–23 correction (−6.6%). That earlier downturn took the national index down 9.1% peak to trough (May 2022 to February 2023, as reported at the time); at −3.6% the current cycle is well short of that benchmark, but its breadth is greater, with 93% of capital-city suburbs falling through winter against 45.8% in autumn.

How spring's supply picture feeds into prices is best expressed as scenarios rather than a forecast. These are qualitative cases, not modelled probabilities.

Source: Our scenario framework, not a statistical model. Bank forecasts as at 4 September 2026: CBA (2 September) has national values falling about 9% peak to trough and the five largest capitals about 10%, with Sydney −13% and Melbourne −12%, troughing during 2027; NAB (4 August) has the eight capitals −5% over 2026 with Sydney and Melbourne roughly 10% peak to trough; ANZ has a 10.6% peak-to-trough fall across the capitals into 2027; Domain's FY27 house-price outlook (June 2026) has Sydney −7% to −3% and Melbourne −8% to −4% against Perth +5% to +9% and Adelaide +4% to +8%; Westpac has national values flat for calendar 2026.

Lawless's framing in the HVI is unusually direct for an index provider: “the combination of sticky inflation, the prospect of higher rates and ongoing pressure on household budgets suggests demand is likely to remain subdued through spring.”

The 29 September RBA Decision Is the Pivot

The RBA's Monetary Policy Board meets on 28–29 September. Every spring outcome discussed above branches on that meeting.

The inflation picture: the ABS Consumer Price Index (monthly) for July, released 26 August, showed headline inflation easing to 3.5%, the year's low, but the monthly trimmed mean rose 0.5%, the largest monthly rise in a year, and annual underlying inflation held at 3.6% for a third month. The RBA's target is 2 to 3% for CPI inflation, and it places most weight on underlying measures when judging whether pressure is persistent. Our ABS CPI July 2026 analysis covers the mechanics.

The counter-case is real. June-quarter GDP, released 2 September, grew 0.4% with annual growth of 2.1%, and the ABS described household behaviour as cautious; Westpac argues softer labour-market and wage data give the Board room to look through one hot monthly print. In August the Board held at 4.35% while noting inflation remained too high and upside risks persisted.

What a hike does to buyers, and the other financing risks

Lenders assess new loans at the contract rate plus a 3-percentage-point serviceability buffer under APRA's prudential guidance, so a 25-basis-point rise in variable rates lifts assessment rates by the same amount, from roughly 9.4% toward 9.65% for a borrower on a mid-6% variable rate. On our illustrative modelling of a dual-income household with $180,000 of combined gross income, no other debt, standard living-expense assumptions and a 30-year principal-and-interest loan, that trims maximum borrowing capacity by roughly 2 to 3%. Outcomes vary widely by lender, income mix and existing commitments; the borrowing capacity calculator sets out the assumptions and lets you test your own.

Three financing risks sit alongside the cash rate. First, fixed rates move on market expectations before the Board does, so hike pricing feeds into fixed-rate offers ahead of any decision. Second, pre-approvals are conditional on the assessment rate at settlement, so an approval obtained in early September can be recut in October. Third, lender valuations in a falling market frequently come in below contract price, which can turn an 80% loan-to-value ratio into 82% and trigger lenders' mortgage insurance or a larger deposit requirement. Buyers who settle finance with headroom rather than at capacity are the ones who can hold a position through the decision.

Should You Buy This Spring? A Framework by Buyer Type

What follows is a framework, not advice; your circumstances, tax position and risk tolerance decide the outcome, and the general-advice note at the end applies.

Source: Our framework, drawing on Cotality HVI August 2026, NAB Housing Market Monitor August 2026, ABS Lending Indicators June quarter 2026, CBA housing forecast 2 September 2026, and ATO guidance on the negative gearing and CGT reforms enacted June 2026. Model yields on the rental yield calculator; SMSF detail in the SMSF LRBA ban checklist.

Houses or units: the cash-flow distinction

The yield case differs sharply by dwelling type. On Cotality's August HVI, units yield 0.8 to 1.6 percentage points more than houses in every capital, and the gap is widest where houses are most expensive.

Source: Cotality Home Value Index, August 2026, houses and units tables. Gross yields are annualised rent against value before costs; unit body-corporate levies, house maintenance and land tax (which falls more heavily on houses) narrow or widen the net gap depending on the property.

Three principles cut across every row.

Price off the last ninety days, not the last twelve months. In the boom capitals the annual growth figure is still double-digit while the last two monthly prints have been close to −1%. Ask for the three most recent comparable sales, not the suburb's year-on-year median.

Let finance lead, not follow. Settle finance before bidding, leave headroom rather than borrowing at capacity, and assume any pre-approval will be re-tested after 29 September.

Prefer the stale to the fresh. Fresh listings in a weak spring are priced by vendors who have not yet had market feedback; a carried-over listing has already had it, and the second and third price adjustments are typically where vendor expectations meet the market.

If You Are Selling This Spring

Pricing. The median vendor discount of 3.9% is the gap between first asking price and sale price for capital-city vendors who succeeded. Vendors who did not succeed are in the 84,961 total listings. Pricing at the February valuation and “testing the market” is how a listing joins the carried-over stock.

Method. Auction works when competition is likely. In Melbourne (53.7% final) and Sydney (51.5%) it still is, marginally, for well-located family homes. In Brisbane (27.4%) and Adelaide (46.1%) a public auction that passes in tells every subsequent buyer what the market thinks.

Timing. A campaign launched in the first half of September completes before the 29 September decision. A campaign launched in October negotiates with buyers whose capacity may have just been recut.

Tax. For investors holding established property acquired before 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026, the property's negative gearing treatment survives only while you hold it; a post-cut-off buyer cannot replicate it. The CGT changes from 1 July 2027 are prospective and preserve the current treatment of gains accrued to that date through a deemed disposal, so there is no forced-sale logic in the reform. Both belong in a conversation with your accountant before you list. Our investment property exit strategy guide sets out the sell-refinance-hold decision.

When the Stale-Stock Thesis Breaks

The thesis here is that spring 2026's elevated stock reflects slow absorption rather than a vendor rush, and that the bargaining power it hands buyers is concentrated in old listings in the big two and in rising volume in the boom capitals. The evidence that would break it:

1. A fresh-supply rebound. If Cotality's 28-day new-listings count for Sydney and Melbourne moves above last year's level in October, the vendor pull-back was seasonal timing rather than a strike, and the stock build becomes a supply story after all.
2. Clearance recovering on higher volume. Finals above 55% for four consecutive weeks as auction books rise toward 1,700 would show buyer depth that the winter data did not.
3. Sales volumes recovering. Cotality's quarterly sales estimate moving from 15.5% below last year back toward the five-year average would mean the carried-over stock is clearing.
4. Total listings falling while new listings rise. That combination is the definition of improving absorption, and it would end the stale-stock spring.

A fifth development would change the balance without breaking the thesis: a further rise in SQM's distressed listings toward 3 to 4% of total stock, concentrated in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. That would convert the boom-capital supply build from profit-taking into something closer to forced selling.

What to Watch Through Spring: Six Dated Signals

Source: Publication schedules as at 4 September 2026 (ABS release calendar; RBA meeting calendar; Cotality's stated release cadence). Follow the releases on our Cotality Home Value Index tracker, PropTrack Home Price Index tracker and Australian vacancy rate tracker.

The Bottom Line

Spring 2026 is opening as a stale-stock season, and the national numbers hide two different markets. Fresh capital-city listings are below last year while total stock is a quarter higher because homes are taking a week longer to sell. In Sydney that gap is a vendor pull-back both Cotality and SQM confirm; in Brisbane and Adelaide it is a supply build both providers confirm in direction, and one that is itself turning stale as the boom-capital bid thins. Melbourne is stale stock on either count, and Perth is a supply build on Cotality's numbers and a modest one on SQM's.

It matters because the two springs call for different tactics. In Sydney and Melbourne the bargaining power lives in the age of the stock; in the boom capitals it lives in the volume, and the risk lives in the annual growth column vendors are still pricing off. Nationally, values fell 0.9% in August for a fifth straight month and Cotality expects demand to stay subdued through spring; thin fresh supply cushions that, a rate hike sharpens it. The available data does not yet show broad-based forced selling, with SQM's distressed listings at about 1.7% of stock, though the direction in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia warrants watching.

What to monitor is short and dated: Cotality's weekly new-listings count and final clearance rate through September as volumes lift toward 1,700; SQM's August vacancy print around 14 September; the RBA's 29 September decision, priced as a slight lean toward a hike as at 3 September; the ABS August CPI on 30 September; and the September Home Value Index on 1 October. Buyers with finance settled, a shortlist priced off the last ninety days, and the patience to work the carried-over stock are the ones this spring is built for.