Brisbane rents stall for a quarter as Gold Coast houses ease to $920

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Brisbane's median asking rent did not move in the three months to September. Domain's September quarter Rent Report, released on Thursday 8 October, puts the city's house median at $700 a week and its unit median at $660, the same figures as in June. On the Gold Coast, the house median fell from $950 to $920 a week.

For houses it is the first flat quarter in 15 months, according to Domain, and it follows four quarterly rises in a row. For units it is the second flat quarter running. The pause comes with the city's vacancy rate still at 0.7 per cent, which is why the report matters beyond the headline: the usual link between scarce rentals and rising rents did not hold this quarter.

Median weekly asking rents, September quarter 2026. Source: Domain Rent Report, released 8 October 2026.

What the September quarter shows for Brisbane

The quarterly change is zero for both dwelling types, so the movement is all in the annual figures. Brisbane's house median is $40 a week higher than the $660 Domain records for September 2025, a rise of 6.1 per cent. Over a full year that is $2,080 more for a household renting at the median. The unit median is $20 higher than a year ago, up 3.1 per cent, or $1,040 over twelve months.

Both annual rates have slowed. In the June quarter report, Domain had Brisbane house rents rising 7.7 per cent over the year and unit rents 4.8 per cent. Domain describes the 3.1 per cent now recorded for units as the weakest annual pace in five and a half years.

The gap between the two dwelling types is unchanged at $40 a week. Houses pulled away from units through the first half of 2026 and the September quarter froze that distance rather than closing it.

Among the capitals, Brisbane now sits level with Canberra as the equal fourth most expensive city in which to rent a house, behind Sydney, Darwin and Perth. Its unit median of $660 is the third highest, behind Sydney at $780 and Perth at $700.

A tight market that did not push rents higher

Domain measures Brisbane's vacancy rate at 0.7 per cent in September, the same as a year earlier and a touch above the 0.6 per cent it recorded in June. The number of homes advertised for rent in the city is 3.0 per cent lower than a year ago. On those two measures the market has not loosened.

What changed is the response of rents. Domain's chief of research and economics, Dr Nicola Powell, reads the result as a limit set by household budgets and not by supply. "Tenants just aren't able to absorb further rent increases, limiting how much higher rents can actually go," she told Domain.

Brisbane is not alone. Domain groups it with Adelaide and Perth as cities that have fewer rentals on the market than a year ago, vacancy rates well under 1 per cent, and asking rents that did not rise in the quarter. Melbourne was the fourth capital with no change in either median.

One Brisbane agency described the same pattern from the property manager's side. Michelle Clair of Matthews Real Estate told Domain that eight of the 800 homes on the firm's rent roll were vacant, and that owners were asking for less at renewal than they did earlier in the year. "Instead of a $50 increase, they are perhaps going with a $20 increase," she said.

The Gold Coast gives back $30

The Gold Coast remains the most expensive city in the country in which to rent a house, according to Domain, but its median has come off the level reached in winter. At $920 a week it is $30 below the June quarter's $950, a fall of 3.2 per cent. Across a year, $30 a week is $1,560.

Even after the fall, the Gold Coast house median is $85 a week above Sydney's $835 and $220 above Brisbane's $700. Domain's coverage of the September report does not give a Gold Coast unit figure. In the June quarter the unit median there was $850 a week, as the ABC reported at the time from Domain data.

A single quarterly fall in a median is not a trend. The Gold Coast market is spread widely between waterfront suburbs and the growth areas at its northern end, and a change in the mix of homes advertised can move the middle figure without any one rent being cut.

Brisbane beside the other capitals

Across the combined capitals, house rents held at $700 a week and unit rents rose $10 to $690. Only two capitals recorded a fall in house rents, and one a clear rise.

The two cities where house rents fell, Sydney and Canberra, are also the two with the highest vacancy rates on Domain's count. Sydney's 1.2 per cent is its highest September reading since 2021, Dr Powell told Real Estate Business. Darwin, where vacancy is 0.3 per cent, went the other way, with house rents up 5.3 per cent in the quarter and 14.3 per cent over the year.

Brisbane fits neither group. Its vacancy rate is closer to Darwin's than to Sydney's, yet its rents behaved like Melbourne's. Nationally, the ABC reported from the same release, the vacancy rate rose 0.1 of a percentage point to 1 per cent.

Where rents are still rising

The city-wide median hides movement underneath. Domain's analysis finds that more affordable areas on the edges of the large cities are still recording growth. Its Queensland example is North Lakes, about 30 kilometres north of Brisbane's centre, where asking rents rose 3 per cent for houses and 4.5 per cent for units over the quarter.

That pattern is consistent with tenants trading location for price. Property economist Cameron Kusher told the ABC that renters were choosing cheaper homes in less convenient places, a compromise they were having to make. When demand shifts outward in that way, the outer suburbs can rise while the city median stands still.

What it means on each side of the lease

For tenants looking for a home, a flat median means the price of entry has stopped climbing for the first time in 15 months. It has not become easier to find a place: with 0.7 per cent of homes vacant and fewer listings than a year ago, the number of applicants per property is the part of the market the report does not show to have changed.

For owners, the report lands nine days after the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate to 4.60 per cent on 29 September, the fourth rise of 2026. Dr Powell told Real Estate Business that the cost of holding a rental had gone up with the cash rate, but that higher asking rents were harder to justify than they were twelve months ago. Domain's own article on the report makes the same point about small investors, whose loan repayments have risen while the rent they can ask has not.

For property managers, the practical consequence is pricing. A home advertised above what applicants can pay now risks sitting empty, and at $700 a week each vacant week costs the owner more than a modest increase would earn over several months.

Other measures, and the next readings

Domain's vacancy rate is built from its own listings, and other firms count differently. Cotality, which uses a different method, measured Brisbane's vacancy rate at 2.1 per cent in September. The two figures describe the same city and are not errors: they answer slightly different questions about which homes count as available. Readers comparing reports should compare each source with its own earlier readings, not one source with another.

On Domain's own series the direction is clear enough. Vacancy in Brisbane is where it was a year ago, the stock of advertised rentals is a little smaller, and asking rents have stopped rising for now.

Domain publishes its Rent Report each quarter, so the December quarter edition, due in the new year, will show whether the pause holds through summer.

Before then, the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Board meets on 2 and 3 November. Its decision feeds into owners' costs, and through them into how many investors keep, sell or buy rental homes, the supply side of the equation that this quarter's figures leave unchanged.

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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