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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Brisbane's auction month closed lower than it had been a fortnight earlier. Cotality's final clearance rates for the week ending 26 July, published on Thursday 30 July, show the city clearing 29.5 per cent of 132 auctions, with 39 homes sold and 93 not. That is 5.9 percentage points under the 35.4 per cent of the week before.
It is the fourth and last full auction week to end in July, which makes it possible to look at the month as a whole.
This magazine's arithmetic from Cotality's four weekly final releases for July 2026. Cotality does not publish a monthly rate.
A month that never reached four in ten
The monthly figure carries one approximation. Cotality's tables give the number of Brisbane auctions cleared in three of the four weeks: 46, 58 and 39. For the week ending 5 July the count used here is the 28 that the published rate of 23.5 per cent implies on 119 auctions.
The shape matters more than the average.
Cotality final clearance rates, published 9, 16, 22 and 30 July 2026. Number of Brisbane auctions in brackets.
The month opened with what Cotality called Brisbane's weakest final reading since late April 2020, recovered by almost 12 points in a week, held there for a second week on a much larger number of auctions, then gave back half of the gain. The busiest week, with 164 auctions, and the quietest, with 119, were 45 auctions apart, and the rate did not follow the volume in either direction.
The last week's early figure had already pointed the same way. Cotality's preliminary release on Monday 27 July had Brisbane at 30.5 per cent, calculated on 105 reported results from 134 auctions, 32 of them sales. The firm described it as the second lowest preliminary result the city has recorded this year. The final rate is one point lower.
Related readBrisbane's early auction result drops to 23.8 per centVolume told a mixed story against last year. In the second and third weeks Brisbane held more auctions than in the matching weeks of 2025: Cotality put the week ending 12 July 25.5 per cent ahead on its early count, and the 164 auctions of the week ending 19 July compared with 154 a year before. The final week went the other way. The firm's preliminary release of 27 July had Brisbane's count 28.3 per cent under the same week of 2025, the largest annual fall it reported for any capital that week.
How the early readings held up
July gave four chances to compare Brisbane's Monday number with its Thursday one, and three of the four were close. The preliminary 23.8 per cent of the first week finalised at 23.5 per cent. The 35.9 per cent of the third week finalised at 35.4 per cent, and the 30.5 per cent of the fourth at 29.5 per cent.
The exception was the week ending 12 July, when an early 43.0 per cent settled 7.6 points lower. That was also the week with the thinnest early coverage: Cotality's summary shows results for 86 of 128 Brisbane auctions on the Monday, against 131 of 163 a week later and 105 of 134 in the final week. In each of the four weeks the final rate was the lower of the two.
Cotality says it collects about 99 per cent of auction results each week on average, and reports a clearance rate only where at least ten results are in hand. The final figure is therefore built on nearly every auction, which is why it is the one used for the monthly count above.
Related readFrom 23.8 to 43 per cent: Brisbane's auction rate rebounds in a weekBrisbane and the rest moved apart
The final week of July was the best for the combined capitals in two months. Cotality's weighted average clearance rate was 49.7 per cent from 1,415 auctions, up 4.4 points on the week before and the highest in eight weeks. Sydney led at 53.3 per cent from 426 auctions, a rise of 10.9 points. Melbourne cleared 51.7 per cent of 710, Canberra 51.4 per cent of 37 and Adelaide 49.0 per cent of 100.
Brisbane fell while each of those rose. Cotality calls its result the weakest among the major mainland markets. The gap between Brisbane and the combined capitals figure was 20.2 points, against 9.9 points a week earlier.
Over the month the national rate climbed where Brisbane's rose and fell back. Cotality's release notes that the combined capitals figure improved from 46.0 per cent in the week ending 5 July to 49.7 per cent by 26 July, with 48.5 per cent and 45.3 per cent in between. Its four-week average stands at 47.4 per cent.
The national number has its own context. Cotality sets 49.7 per cent beside 68.5 per cent in the same week of 2025, a difference of 18.8 points, with auction volumes 17.3 per cent under last year's 1,710. Part of the recent improvement, on the firm's own account, comes from sellers and not from bidders. Its preliminary release of 27 July said withdrawn auctions had fallen to 17.4 per cent of those scheduled, from about 24 per cent in the week ending 21 June, and compared both with an average of 11.8 per cent in 2025.
Related readBrisbane sellers keep choosing auction as bookings rise 15 per centThe firm's explanation for the year's weakness has been consistent through the month. Its release of 22 July pointed to softer buyer demand amid stretched affordability, the cumulative effect of Reserve Bank interest rate rises, and pressure on household incomes and confidence. Its 9 July release added the season: auction activity normally eases through June and July and picks up towards spring.
The coasts through the month
Cotality's regional rows cover the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast each week. Their July ran differently from the capital's, and differently from each other's.
| Week ending | Gold Coast | Sunshine Coast |
|---|---|---|
| 5 July | 23 of 64, 35.9% | 21 of 60, 35.0% |
| 12 July | 19 of 72, 26.4% | 19 of 46, 41.3% |
| 19 July | 15 of 52, 28.9% | 9 of 26, 34.6% |
| 26 July | 15 of 51, 29.4% | 7 of 17, 41.2% |
Cotality finalised clearance rates by sub-region, published 9, 16, 22 and 30 July 2026.
The Gold Coast held 239 auctions over the four weeks and cleared 72 of them, about 30 per cent, almost the same share as Brisbane. Its best week was the first, the reverse of the capital's pattern, and its last week finished level with Brisbane's 29.5 per cent.
The Sunshine Coast cleared 56 of 149, close to 38 per cent, and was above Brisbane in three weeks of the four. Its auction numbers shrank through the month, from 60 to 17, and by the final week one sale was moving the rate by almost six points. A rate on 17 auctions is a result, not a trend.
Put the three markets together and South East Queensland's month comes to 933 auctions and about 299 sales, or 32 per cent. Fewer than one auction in three across the capital and both coasts ended with a sale recorded in the week it was held.
What the month leaves behind
A clearance rate counts what happened under the hammer and in the reported results around it. It does not count the homes that sold by negotiation in the days after a pass-in, and Queensland's rules leave that door open: the state government's guidance for sellers says a vendor whose reserve is not reached may choose to negotiate with a bidder. With 93 Brisbane auctions uncleared in the final week alone, and about 374 across the month, a good deal of July's selling was still to be done when the month's auctions ended.
For buyers, the same numbers describe a month of thin competition on auction day. For sellers and the agents and auctioneers working with them, they describe campaigns in which the reserve and the follow-up carried more weight than the bidding.
August opens with 141
Cotality's preview for the week ending 2 August lists 141 Brisbane auctions, nine more than this week and 13 more than the 128 held in the same week of 2025. The national total is expected to ease to 1,302, which would be 8.0 per cent fewer than this week and 17.3 per cent fewer than the 1,575 of a year earlier. Most of that fall is in Melbourne, where 553 auctions are scheduled after this week's 710.
Brisbane sellers are still booking the method at about the pace of the past month, and ahead of last year's, while the larger southern calendars thin out. Further ahead, Cotality expects national volumes of around 1,160 in the week ending 16 August. Its preliminary results for the week ending 2 August are due on Monday 3 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.
