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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →A year ago, close to two in three Brisbane auctions ended in a sale. In the week ending Sunday 23 August, fewer than one in three did. Cotality's final clearance rates release, published on Thursday 27 August, put Brisbane's rate at 32.7 per cent from 151 auctions, and gave the figure for the same week of 2025 as 62.5 per cent.
The difference is 29.8 percentage points. Every capital with a published comparison is running below its level of last August, according to the same release, but none of the five larger auction markets has fallen as far as Brisbane.
The annual gap, city by city
Cotality published this year's final rate and last year's for each capital. For the five cities with enough auctions to make the comparison meaningful, the gap ranges from just under 19 points to almost 30.
| Capital | This year | A year ago | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brisbane | 32.7% | 62.5% | 29.8 pts |
| Adelaide | 46.7% | 69.4% | 22.7 pts |
| Sydney | 50.3% | 71.6% | 21.3 pts |
| Melbourne | 51.9% | 70.9% | 19.0 pts |
| Canberra | 40.9% | 59.5% | 18.6 pts |
Cotality final clearance rates, published 27 August 2026. Gaps calculated from the two published rates. Perth and Tasmania, with 11 auctions and one, are left out.
Brisbane started from a lower point than Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide a year ago and has dropped further. Canberra, which also sat near 60 per cent last August, has lost a little under 19 points over the same period.
The comparison has shifted within a fortnight. For the week ending 9 August, Cotality's release had Brisbane's rate 23.5 points under its level of a year earlier, a smaller annual fall than Adelaide's 23.9 points or Canberra's 28.6. Two weeks on, Brisbane has the widest gap of the five.
Across the combined capitals, Cotality put the weighted average final clearance rate at 48.2 per cent, against roughly 70.0 per cent a year earlier. It was the twelfth week of the past thirteen in which the national rate finished under 50 per cent. The firm's reading is that fewer homes are being offered at auction and a larger share are failing to sell, which leaves buyers with more choice and more room to negotiate. It adds that the vendors who are achieving a sale are generally those ready to meet the market.
Related readBrisbane posts its best final auction result in three months: 38.5%The national figure has been as range-bound as Brisbane's, one step higher. Cotality's eight final releases since the start of July put the combined capitals between 45.3 per cent, in the week ending 19 July, and 51.4 per cent, in the week ending 9 August. Last week's 48.2 per cent is 0.7 points under the 48.9 per cent of the week before.
In homes, not percentages
Cotality's release gives the number of auctions cleared in each city, which puts the rates on a human scale. In Brisbane, 49 auctions were recorded as sold among the results collected from the week's 151 auctions. Melbourne cleared 309 of 594 and Sydney 240 of 477. Adelaide cleared 42 of 90 and Canberra 27 of 66. Across the capitals the count was 670 sales from 1,390 auctions.
The week before, Brisbane had cleared 51 of 142. Two fewer sales from nine more auctions is the whole of the week's fall in the rate, from 35.9 per cent to 32.7 per cent.
A passed-in home is not counted again if it sells later
Cotality's rate records what was known in the days around the auction. A property that is passed in can still sell by negotiation in the weeks that follow. At that point it is a private treaty sale, and the weekly auction figure no longer follows it.
So a low clearance rate does not mean that two-thirds of these homes will go unsold. It means that for about two in three Brisbane sellers the auction itself did not produce the sale, and the campaign carried on by other means.
Brisbane's winter on the final measure
Within August, Brisbane's final rate has drifted down. Cotality's releases put it at 37.5 per cent for the week ending 2 August, 35.4 per cent for the week ending 9 August, 35.9 per cent for the week ending 16 August and 32.7 per cent for the week just counted, a fall of 3.2 points in a week. Over a longer run, the latest figure sits in the middle of the range the city has occupied since the start of July.
Related readBrisbane's 51.9 per cent early result settles at 35.9 per centCotality final clearance rates for the eight weeks ending 5 July to 23 August 2026.
In eight weeks the city has not finished above 37.5 per cent, and only once below 29 per cent. That band is what makes the annual comparison so wide: the rate has been stable at a level about half of last August's.
The preliminary reading published on Monday 24 August had been 40.4 per cent, built on 89 reported results out of 153 auctions, 36 of them sales. The final figure is 7.7 points lower, and the 62 results added after Monday held 13 sales. That revision is about half the size of the one seen a week earlier, when an early 51.9 per cent settled at 35.9 per cent.
The other capitals lost ground between the two counts as well. The combined capitals rate went from a preliminary 53.2 per cent to the final 48.2 per cent. Sydney moved from 56.6 per cent to 50.3 per cent, Melbourne from 55.4 per cent to 51.9 per cent and Adelaide from 54.8 per cent to 46.7 per cent. Canberra, at 41.4 per cent on the Monday and 40.9 per cent on the Thursday, hardly moved.
Volume, the other half of the comparison
Volume is where Brisbane has stood apart from the larger southern markets this winter. The 151 auctions held last week compare with 142 the week before. Nationally, Cotality counted 1,390 auctions, 8.9 per cent more than the previous week's 1,276 and 32.7 per cent fewer than the 2,066 held in the same week of 2025.
Last week was an exception to Brisbane's run ahead of 2025, though a mild one. Cotality's preliminary release of 24 August put the city's count 9.5 per cent under the same week of last year, where Sydney's was 33.9 per cent under and Melbourne's 39.1 per cent. Earlier in the month Brisbane had been the only capital, or one of two, holding more auctions than a year before.
Related readBrisbane's early auction clearance rate climbs back above 40 per centThe wider conditions have not changed since the firm set them out a week ago. In its release of 20 August, Cotality listed a cash rate held at 4.35 per cent, constrained borrowing capacity, falling national dwelling values, stretched affordability and subdued buyer demand as the setting for this winter's results.
Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast
The two coastal markets in Cotality's sub-region summary finished the week almost level with each other and with the capital. The Gold Coast recorded a final clearance rate of 31.2 per cent from 61 auctions. The Sunshine Coast recorded 32.1 per cent from 28 auctions.
For the Sunshine Coast, that is a sharp change from the week before, when 18 of 35 auctions sold and the final rate was 51.4 per cent. A market with fewer than 30 auctions in a week will produce swings of that size without any underlying shift, and it is the run of weeks that carries information. The Gold Coast has been steadier: its final rate was 31.3 per cent for the week ending 9 August, 33.3 per cent for the week ending 16 August and 31.2 per cent last week.
Both coasts were revised down from Monday, less sharply than the capital. The Gold Coast's preliminary rate had been 35.7 per cent and the Sunshine Coast's 36.8 per cent, each about four and a half points above where the week finished.
The last week of winter
Cotality has 149 auctions scheduled in Brisbane for the week ending 30 August, two fewer than were held last week. The firm compared that with 123 in the same week of 2025, which makes this year's schedule 21.1 per cent larger.
The national schedule is growing as spring nears. Cotality counts 1,543 homes scheduled across the capitals for the final week of winter, 11.0 per cent more than last week's 1,390 and 29.5 per cent fewer than the 2,190 auctions held in the matching week of 2025. Melbourne has 630 scheduled against 1,082 a year ago and Sydney 599 against 810. Adelaide, with 108 scheduled against 103 a year ago, is the only other capital the release shows ahead of last year.
Beyond that, the firm expects about 1,450 auctions in the week ending 6 September and a little over 1,440 in the week ending 13 September. Its preliminary results for the week ending 30 August are due on Monday 31 August.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
