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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The average Brisbane open home is now seeing about two people walk through the door. Figures from Ray White Group, reported by Australian Broker on Monday 20 July 2026, show attendance at the group's Brisbane inspections down 59 per cent on a year ago, the sharpest fall of any capital city.
Nationally, the group counted an average of 2.1 people per open home in the four weeks to 11 July, against 3.6 in the same weeks of 2025. Ray White says that is the lowest reading since it began tracking attendance in January 2024. For buyers in south-east Queensland, the numbers put a measure on something many will already have noticed on a Saturday morning: there is more room to look, and less of a queue at the gate.
Ray White Group open home data for the four weeks to 11 July 2026, as published by the group and reported by Australian Broker on 20 July 2026.
What Ray White counted
The analysis was written by Ray White Group's chief economist, Nerida Conisbee. It draws on the group's own records of roughly 13,000 open homes a week across Australia, and counts individual people attending, not the number of households or buying groups. A couple inspecting together count as two.
On that basis, a fall from 3.6 to 2.1 people per inspection is a drop of more than 40 per cent in a year. The east-coast capitals have converged: Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all now average around two people per open home. Perth and Adelaide remain the busiest markets in the data, with close to three attendees per inspection, though the group notes both are well below their levels of a year ago.
Related readBuying a unit in Queensland: read the body corporate records firstBrisbane's 59 per cent fall is the largest because it has come down from a higher starting point. A year ago the city was among the most competitive markets in the country for buyers. The Ray White figures do not give Brisbane's average for July 2025, only the percentage change, so the comparison rests on that single number.
The data covers one agency group. It is a large sample, but it reflects the suburbs, price ranges and property types Ray White offices happen to list, and other groups may see different levels. It is best read as a consistent measure over time from one source.
How attendance fell through the year
The decline was not a single step. Ray White's timeline shows the year starting strongly, with attendance at the end of January running about 10 per cent above the same point of 2025. By the week ending 9 May the average had slipped to 2.6 people, 22 per cent below a year earlier. The Federal Budget followed on 12 May. By early July the average was 2.1.
The group names several causes together: three interest rate increases during the year, weak consumer sentiment, uncertainty arising from the Middle East, and the Budget's changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, which bear on investors. Cotality's head of research, Tim Lawless, is cited alongside Ms Conisbee in the Australian Broker report attributing the wider cooling to borrowing costs, weak sentiment and the Budget's changes for investors.
Other dated sources line up with that sequence. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey published on 14 July put its "time to buy a dwelling" index at 85.4 nationally, well under a long-run average of 119, with Queensland at 82. The same survey found 47 per cent of consumers expecting home prices to rise over the next year, the first time since March 2023 that the share has been under half.
Related readBuying acreage in Queensland: the extra checks beyond the houseOn the ground, Brisbane buyer's agent Melinda Jennison, writing in Real Estate Business on 20 July, described some local inspections drawing only one or two buyer groups, where comparable homes had drawn 30 to 40 groups three months earlier. That is one practitioner's observation and not a statistic, but it points the same way as the Ray White count.
Signs the slide has steadied
The second half of the Ray White finding matters as much as the first. The four-week average has held at about 2.1 for three consecutive weeks, and the weekly figures have stayed between 2.0 and 2.1 since mid-June. In the group's words, the rate of decline appears to be easing.
Winter is normally the quietest part of the year for inspections, so some of the low level is seasonal. Comparing with the same weeks a year earlier removes that effect, and the annual fall is what the 59 per cent figure for Brisbane measures. A flat line over five or six winter weeks does not show that buyers are returning. It shows they have stopped leaving.
The timing coincides with the Reserve Bank's decision in June to leave the cash rate unchanged after three increases in a row. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey found the share of consumers expecting mortgage rates to rise fell from 66 per cent in June to about 60 per cent in July. Whether a pause in rate rises is the reason attendance stopped falling is not something the Ray White data can establish.
What a quieter open home means for a buyer
Ms Conisbee's own reading is restrained. She writes that lower attendance does not necessarily mean lower prices, and that it points to a less frantic market in which buyers are under less pressure to act quickly. Australian Broker quotes her observation that "a property only needs one buyer".
Related readChecking flood risk before buying in Queensland: what the maps tell youThat is a fair caution. An inspection with two people can still end in a sale at the asking price if one of them wants the home. What changes with thinner crowds is the process around the sale.
| At the inspection | A year ago | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Time in the property | Short, shared with a crowd | Longer, often with the agent free to answer questions |
| Pressure to offer on the day | High, with rival buyers visible | Lower, as the group describes a less frantic market |
| Conditions in an offer | Often dropped to compete | More room to ask for finance and inspection conditions |
| Second visits | Hard to arrange before a sale | Easier, with homes staying listed longer |
General description based on Ray White Group's reading of its attendance data. Individual sales vary.
Pricing evidence from a separate source shows the same loosening. Cotality's monthly chart pack, published on 16 July, puts the median vendor discount across the combined capital cities at 3.6 per cent, and describes negotiating conditions as having improved for buyers. That figure is national. It is the gap between the first advertised price and the eventual sale price, and it does not mean a Brisbane buyer can expect that reduction on any given home.
Fewer people at an inspection also removes a signal buyers have relied on. A crowded open home told everyone present that the price was attractive. With two visitors, a buyer learns less from the room and more from comparable sales, the time the home has been listed, and what the agent can say about other interest.
What it means for sellers and agents
For owners preparing to sell, low attendance changes the arithmetic of a campaign. A home that would have drawn a dozen groups in its first weekend a year ago may now draw two or three across a fortnight. The pool is smaller, so each visitor matters more, and the first advertised price has less margin for error.
Agents' work shifts accordingly. With fewer walk-ins, more of the effort goes into finding and following up individual buyers, and into private inspections outside the advertised times. Sales methods adjust as well: Cotality's 16 July chart pack reports the share of homes taken to auction nationally fell from almost 45 per cent in November 2025 to just over 30 per cent in June 2026, as vendors turned to private treaty in a softer market. That shift was led by Sydney and Melbourne.
None of this describes a market without buyers. The Ray White count shows people still attending every week, in smaller numbers, and Brisbane's attendance is now level with the two largest capitals when a year ago it was ahead of them.
How to read the figure, and what comes next
Three points help keep the 59 per cent in proportion. It is a change from an unusually busy period, so part of the fall is a return from an exceptional level. It measures people through one group's doors, not sales or prices. And it is an average: a renovated house in a sought-after school catchment and a dated unit on a main road will not see the same turnout.
The next test is seasonal. Listings and inspections normally build from late winter into spring, and the weeks ahead will show whether attendance rises with them or stays near two people per home. Before then, the June quarter inflation figures are due on 29 July, ahead of the Reserve Bank Board's August meeting. Westpac's economists expect a further increase of 25 basis points at that meeting, a forecast and not a decision, and one that would bear directly on what buyers can borrow.
For now, the measure says open homes nationally are as quiet as they have been since the series began in January 2024, that Brisbane has fallen furthest to get there, and that the numbers are no longer getting worse.
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.
