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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 home in Brisbane now takes a median of 35 days to sell, against 19 days a year ago, and the typical seller is accepting 4.2 per cent less than the asking price where a year ago the gap was 2.8 per cent. Those Cotality figures, reported by Australian Broker and MPA on Tuesday 6 October, describe a capital where the balance has moved towards the buyer in a matter of months.
On the same day, the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey for October put a number on how Queenslanders feel about it. The state's "time to buy a dwelling" index stands at 85, below New South Wales and Victoria and well under the level of 100 at which optimists and pessimists are evenly matched. More room to negotiate has not produced more confidence, and a Reserve Bank rate rise in the last days of September is a large part of the reason.
Cotality, days to sell for the three months to August 2026, as reported by Australian Broker on 6 October; Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey, 28 September to 1 October 2026.
Fewer sales and longer campaigns
The sharpest change is in the number of transactions. Cotality counts 27.2 per cent fewer home sales in Brisbane over the past three months than in the same period a year earlier, which MPA describes as the steepest fall of any capital.
Fewer sales with more homes on offer means each property waits longer for its buyer. The median time on market of 35 days, measured over the three months to August, is 16 days longer than a year before. Real Estate Business, in a 6 October analysis by Gemma Crotty drawing on buyer's agent Melinda Jennison, sets those numbers beside the price index: Brisbane dwelling values fell 1.5 per cent in September and 4.7 per cent over the September quarter, leaving them 5.4 per cent below their May peak.
Related readBuying a Queensland home from interstate or overseas: what differsValues are still 5.9 per cent higher than a year ago, Australian Broker notes. Sydney and Melbourne, by comparison, are down 7.0 per cent and 6.2 per cent over twelve months. Brisbane's correction started later and from a higher point, which is why a buyer can face falling prices and still pay more than the same home cost last spring.
| Measure | A year earlier | Latest |
|---|---|---|
| Median days to sell | 19 days | 35 days |
| Median vendor discount | 2.8% | 4.2% |
| Homes sold over three months | Base | 27.2% fewer |
| Homes listed for sale | Base | 43.5% more |
Cotality, as reported by Australian Broker and MPA, 6 October 2026: days to sell for the three months to August, discount and sales for the latest three months. SQM Research listings for September 2026.
What a 4.2 per cent discount means
The vendor discount is the gap between the price at which a home was advertised and the price at which it finally sold, taken across all private treaty sales and expressed as a median. It is the nearest thing the market has to a measure of how much sellers are giving way.
An illustration shows the scale. On a home advertised at $1 million, a discount of 2.8 per cent is $28,000 and a discount of 4.2 per cent is $42,000. The extra 1.4 percentage points is worth $14,000 on that asking price. These are illustrative figures, not sale records.
Two cautions apply. The figure is a median, so half of sellers conceded less and some conceded nothing. And it is measured from the advertised price, which sellers have themselves been lowering: SQM Research's September data, reported by MPA on 6 October, shows Brisbane asking prices down 2.1 per cent in a single month, the largest monthly fall among the capitals. A buyer today negotiates down from a starting point that has already moved.
Jack Freestone, director of the buyer's agency Buyer's Collective, gave Australian Broker a view from the negotiating side. A competitive Brisbane property that drew "three to six or more" offers earlier in 2026 now draws "one to three", he said, adding: "It's more of a normal market now."
Related readBuying a unit in Queensland: read the body corporate records firstMore homes listed, mostly because they are not selling
SQM Research counted 21,153 homes listed for sale in Brisbane in September, 43.5 per cent more than in September 2025 and the largest annual increase of any capital. Nationally, listings reached 276,839, up 2.6 per cent in the month and 21.6 per cent over the year.
A rise of that size could mean a wave of owners deciding to sell. The evidence suggests otherwise. Real Estate Business reports that new listings in Brisbane over the four weeks to 6 September were 5.4 per cent higher than a year earlier, a far smaller increase than the growth in total stock. The difference is made up of homes that were listed weeks or months ago and are still waiting.
SQM's managing director, Louis Christopher, drew the same conclusion about the national figures in MPA's report: "That's a demand problem, not a supply surge."
For a buyer the distinction is practical. Stock that has built up because it has not sold includes homes whose owners have had time to reconsider their price. A listing that has been online for two months is a different conversation from one that appeared last Thursday.
Interstate arrivals still compete for family homes
The slowdown has not removed one group of buyers. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures cited by Australian Broker show Queensland gained 14,718 people through net interstate migration in the year to March 2026, the most of any state. Western Australia was second with just over 10,000.
Mr Freestone told the publication that many of the newcomers his firm sees are being recruited from interstate to work on government and infrastructure projects, and that they are looking for family homes. His warning to bargain hunters was that a good property can still attract several offers, so an offer pitched too low can miss out.
Related readBuying acreage in Queensland: the extra checks beyond the houseThat is consistent with the spread in the data. A median of 35 days conceals homes that sell in the first week and homes that sit for a quarter. The well-located family house in a school catchment is not negotiated in the same way as a property that has been passed over by two months of open homes.
Queensland buyers gloomier than those in the south
The Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey, published on 6 October, questioned 1,200 adults between 28 September and 1 October. Its national "time to buy a dwelling" index rose 3.4 per cent to 88.4, but the state readings are far apart.
Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment survey, published 6 October 2026. Survey of 1,200 adults, 28 September to 1 October.
Westpac's explanation, in the release written by its head of Australian macro-forecasting Matthew Hassan, is that buyer sentiment is a little less downbeat in New South Wales and Victoria, where dwelling prices have fallen further, and more pessimistic in Queensland. Prices in the two southern states have come down enough for some buyers to see value. In Queensland, where values are still above last year's, fewer do.
The national index has also given back ground. In August it stood at 95.7, the highest since November 2025. Westpac's September release described a sharp pullback in homebuyer sentiment, and October's 88.4 is a partial recovery from that fall.
On prices, opinion is split three ways. The Index of House Price Expectations rose 4.3 per cent to 115.1 in October, after sliding 36 per cent over the six months to August and holding steady in September. Just over 31 per cent of respondents expect prices to fall over the next year, 18 per cent expect no change and 46 per cent expect a rise. Westpac records a small improvement of 4.3 per cent in Queensland's price expectations and a much larger one, 11 per cent, in Victoria.
Related readChecking flood risk before buying in Queensland: what the maps tell youA rate rise in the middle of the survey
The Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate to 4.60 per cent on 29 September, part-way through the survey week, and the responses before and after the decision read like two different months. Westpac says the 60 per cent of people surveyed before the announcement produced a headline sentiment reading of 86.9. The 40 per cent surveyed afterwards produced 67.2. The combined index fell 4.7 per cent to 80.4.
Among those questioned after the decision, just over 80 per cent expect mortgage rates to rise further over the next twelve months. The survey's mortgage rate expectations index rose 5.5 per cent to 179.7, which MPA notes is close to its May high of 181.0.
For buyers this is the counterweight to every favourable number above. A wider vendor discount lowers the price. A higher rate lowers the amount a lender will advance and raises the repayment on what is borrowed. Whether a household is better or worse placed than six months ago depends on which of the two moved further for them.
How buyers are using the extra room
The accounts gathered by the trade press this week point to a market that rewards preparation more than speed. With one to three offers on a competitive home where there were up to six, a buyer has a realistic chance of securing a contract that is subject to finance and to building and pest inspections. With a median of 35 days on market, there is time to order searches and read the seller's disclosure statement before making an offer.
What the figures do not support is the idea that any offer will do. Sales are down by more than a quarter, but listings of fresh stock have barely grown, interstate arrivals continue, and values remain 5.9 per cent above their level of a year ago. Cotality's next monthly index and SQM's October listings count will show whether the rate rise of 29 September, which came too late to affect most of the figures above, has widened the buyer's margin further.
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.
