Brisbane's early auction result drops to 23.8 per cent

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Fewer than one in four Brisbane auctions reported so far found a buyer in the first week of July. Cotality's preliminary auction results, published on Monday 6 July, put the city's clearance rate for the week ending 5 July at 23.8 per cent, from 120 homes taken to auction.

The research firm describes that figure as Brisbane's lowest preliminary result since early May 2020, when it recorded 21.4 per cent. It is also the fourth time in five weeks that the city's early reading has come in under 40 per cent.

Cotality preliminary auction results for the week ending 5 July 2026, published 6 July 2026.

A small week, and a quiet one

Volume fell along with the rate. Cotality counts 120 Brisbane auctions for the week, down 11.8 per cent on the week before and 24.1 per cent lower than the same week of 2025. That matches what the firm had flagged four days earlier: its final release for the week ending 28 June, published on 2 July, expected about 120 Brisbane auctions for the week ahead.

Of those 120, Cotality had results for 101 by Monday. Twenty-four were sales and 77 were not. The remaining 19 had not reported.

That earlier release is also the fairest point of comparison for the rate. Brisbane's final clearance rate for the week ending 28 June was 36.8 per cent across 136 auctions, the lowest of any capital and 30.6 percentage points under the 67.4 per cent of the same week a year earlier. A preliminary number and a final number are not the same measure, so the two should not be read as a like-for-like fall. What they do show is the range the city has been moving in since the start of winter, and that this week's opening figure sits well under it.

A preliminary rate is built from the results agents and auctioneers have reported by Monday morning. Some results arrive later, and the final rate, published on Thursday, counts them. The first figure is a useful early signal. It is not the settled one.

In this case the missing results cannot rescue the week. If all 19 outstanding auctions were reported as sales, 43 of the 120 would have sold, a rate of 35.8 per cent, which would still be under the 36.8 per cent final rate of the week before. A full set of late sales has never happened in the weeks covered here, so the realistic range is a good deal narrower than that.

Five weeks of early readings

The run of Monday figures since the start of June shows both the pattern Cotality refers to and how far the latest reading sits from the rest.

Through June the early rate alternated between the low 30s and about 40 per cent on a nearly constant number of auctions. The first week of July breaks that in two ways at once: the count dropped under 130 for the first time in the period, and the rate fell about eight points beneath the previous low.

The final figures for the four June weeks were 34.1, 39.4, 35.4 and 36.8 per cent. Each landed within three points of its early reading, twice above and twice below. On that record, Brisbane's Thursday number has tended to confirm Monday's and not to overturn it.

The two coasts held more auctions than the capital

Cotality's summary shows an unusual balance within south-east Queensland. The Gold Coast held 64 auctions and the Sunshine Coast 61, which makes 125 between them against Brisbane's 120.

On the Gold Coast, 20 of the 56 results collected were sales, an early clearance rate of 35.7 per cent. That is up from an early 30.8 per cent a week before, on 13 more auctions. On the Sunshine Coast, 21 of 54 reported results were sales, or 38.9 per cent. Its auction count more than doubled from 26 the previous week, and its early rate came down from 54.2 per cent as the sample grew.

Both coasts therefore out-cleared Brisbane on the Monday count by 12 to 15 points. Pooled, they sold 41 of 110 reported auctions, or 37.3 per cent. The figures are still low, and they are preliminary, but they place the week's weakness in the capital and not across the region as a whole.

How the rest of the country compared

Brisbane was not alone in having a slow week, but it was alone at this level. Across the combined capital cities, Cotality's preliminary clearance rate was 49.8 per cent, from 561 sales among 1,126 results. That is up from a preliminary 49.2 per cent the week before and the third week in a row under 50 per cent. A total of 1,447 capital city homes went to auction, down 17.2 per cent on the previous week and 19.3 per cent on the 1,794 held a year earlier.

Melbourne recorded a preliminary 54.5 per cent from 582 auctions, its highest in three weeks and, Cotality notes, the sixth week running below 60 per cent. Sydney recorded 51.6 per cent from 563, up from 47.3 per cent. Adelaide fell to a preliminary 45.7 per cent from 111 auctions, down from 68.7 per cent a week earlier and the second lowest early figure it has posted this year. Canberra came in at 50.0 per cent from 48 results.

Brisbane's 23.8 per cent is therefore about half the combined capitals figure, and roughly 22 percentage points behind Adelaide, the next lowest of the capitals in Cotality's release.

The wider setting was laid out in the firm's final release of 2 July. It described June as a challenging month for sellers, with more than half of auctioned homes not selling, and put the combined capitals' final clearance rate for the week ending 28 June at 45.0 per cent, against 52.4 per cent eight weeks earlier. The same release noted that Cotality's June Home Value Index recorded its largest monthly fall since December 2022, with values down 1.2 per cent in Sydney and 1.0 per cent in Melbourne over the month.

What a low clearance rate does and does not say

A clearance rate describes auction day and the hours around it. A home that is passed in has not failed to sell. It has failed to sell under the hammer. In Queensland, the state government's consumer guidance notes that when bidding does not reach the reserve, the seller may choose to negotiate with a bidder afterwards, and many campaigns end that way in the days that follow.

The figure also says nothing about price. Cotality's weekly auction release reports how many homes sold, not what they sold for, and a week with 120 auctions is a small sample.

Nor does Monday's release say how the 77 unsold Brisbane results divide between homes passed in and auctions withdrawn before the day. That split comes with the final figures. Nationally, the final count for the week ending 28 June showed 662 capital city auctions passed in and 299 withdrawn, out of 1,748.

For sellers and their agents, the practical meaning of a week like this one is that the reserve, the pre-auction offers and the conversation with the highest bidder afterwards are carrying more of the campaign than the auction itself. For buyers, it means less competition on the day, alongside the same Queensland rules as always: no cooling-off period for a home bought at auction, a contract signed on the spot, and, under the government's guidance, the same absence of cooling-off for a registered bidder who buys within two business days of an auction that did not produce a sale.

The timing is also part of the picture. The Queensland Department of Education's term dates put the mid-year school break from Saturday 27 June to Sunday 12 July, so the whole of the week fell inside the holidays. Cotality has been attributing part of the national decline in auction numbers to the winter season, and it expects volumes to keep easing. A holiday week may thin the crowd at an auction as well as the list of homes on offer, though the figures cannot show that. What they do show is that Brisbane's count was down by almost a quarter on the same week a year earlier, while the national count was down by a little under a fifth.

What comes next

Cotality will publish the final clearance rate for the week ending 5 July on Thursday 9 July, along with the pass-in and withdrawal counts and the final figures for the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. The firm expects auction activity to soften further in the week now under way, with around 1,300 homes scheduled across the capital cities.

One week of 120 auctions is a thin sample. Four early readings under 40 per cent in five weeks is a pattern.

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.

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