Brisbane's median now sits $147,302 below Sydney's, REIQ points out

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Queensland keeps drawing more residents from other states than anywhere else in Australia, and its homes no longer cost much less than those they leave behind. That is the picture in a media release published by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland on 10 July 2026, which sets the latest migration numbers beside Cotality's June medians.

The REIQ quotes a median dwelling value of $1,118,306 for Brisbane and $1,265,608 for Sydney, both from Cotality's Home Value Index for June. The difference is $147,302. Put another way, the Brisbane median is about 88 per cent of Sydney's.

REIQ media release, 10 July 2026, citing Cotality Home Value Index medians for June 2026 and the Queensland Government Statistician's Office. Differences computed from those medians.

The migration numbers behind the release

The REIQ's argument starts with people. Queensland gained a net 16,528 residents from other states in 2025, the release says, while New South Wales lost a net 21,465. Western Australia, with a gain of 10,410, is the only other state the REIQ lists with a positive result. Over the same year Queensland's population grew 1.6 per cent, against 1.2 per cent for New South Wales.

Most of Queensland's gain comes from one direction. Citing the Queensland Government Statistician's Office and its own analysis of ABS data, the REIQ says that in 2024-25 about 13,000 of Queensland's net interstate gain of 21,600 people came from New South Wales, a share of 60.3 per cent.

The statistician's own publication on the 2024-25 year gives the exact figure as 21,595 and confirms the 60.3 per cent share, describing New South Wales as still the largest source of interstate migrants to Queensland. Victoria, it says, contributed a net 6,917 people in the same year.

The two periods should not be confused. The 21,595 figure covers the financial year to June 2025; the 16,528 covers the calendar year 2025. Read in order, they show the interstate inflow easing. The statistician's office puts the gain for the year to September 2025 at 19,350, between the two, and notes that the 2024-25 result was already 46.3 per cent below the 40,223 people Queensland gained from other states in 2020-21, at the height of the pandemic-era move north.

Where interstate movers sit in Queensland's growth

Interstate migration draws most of the attention in property circles, but it is the smallest of the three sources of Queensland's population growth. The statistician's office, in a brief published on 18 June 2026 from ABS data, counts 5,712,124 Queenslanders at 31 December 2025, which is 20.5 per cent of the national population of 27,801,023. The state added 92,162 people over the year.

On those figures, people arriving from overseas made up 59.2 per cent of the state's growth, the excess of births over deaths 22.8 per cent, and interstate movers 17.9 per cent. Queensland's growth rate of 1.6 per cent was a little above the national rate of 1.5 per cent and below Western Australia's 2.2 per cent, the office says.

The distinction matters for housing. Interstate movers are the group for whom the price comparison with another Australian city is most direct, which is why the REIQ pairs the migration figures with median prices. All three sources of growth add to the number of homes the state needs, which is the point the institute goes on to make.

Which regions the movers choose

The regions take a large part of the internal flow. The release cites the Regional Movers Index, produced by the Regional Australia Institute and the Commonwealth Bank, whose March quarter report was published on 23 June 2026.

Two of the top three are in Queensland. The same report names Toowoomba as the fastest-growing destination for people leaving the capitals, with net inflows from capital cities up 236.4 per cent over the year, and has Townsville third on that measure with a rise of 159.7 per cent. Bundaberg accounts for 1.5 per cent of net internal migration, and the report lists Douglas, in the far north, among its emerging destinations.

The index is built differently from the ABS figures, and the two should be read side by side, not added together. According to the report, it draws on relocations among more than 14.6 million Commonwealth Bank customers, counts a move only when the customer had been at the previous address for at least six months, and looks at moves between local government areas. The March quarter reading was the highest for capital-to-regional movement since the series began, up 20.1 per cent on the December quarter. Sydney accounted for 55 per cent of the net outflow from capital cities and Melbourne for 36 per cent.

A narrower gap in the capital

The price gap between the two capitals is still large in dollars, but it has been closing as Sydney falls and Brisbane rises more slowly. A month earlier, Cotality's May figures had Sydney at $1,282,020 and Brisbane at $1,126,149, a difference of $155,871. On the June medians the gap is $8,569 smaller.

The June index, published on 1 July, shows why. Brisbane values rose 0.3 per cent in the month and 1.3 per cent over the June quarter, while Sydney's fell 1.2 per cent in the month and 3.2 per cent over the quarter. Over twelve months the contrast is starker: Cotality has Brisbane values up 17.4 per cent and Sydney's up 0.3 per cent.

The comparison of all dwellings also hides a difference in what is being bought. Cotality's June median for a Brisbane house is $1,225,350 and for a Brisbane unit $885,132. A household moving north and trading an apartment for a house will meet a different sum from one buying like for like.

For a household selling in Sydney and buying in Brisbane, the saving at the median is therefore shrinking. The REIQ makes the affordability case differently: it cites PropTrack's Housing Affordability Index, which it says ranked New South Wales as having the worst housing affordability in Australia in 2024-25, a measure that takes incomes and mortgage rates into account as well as prices.

Regional Queensland overtakes regional NSW

Outside the capitals, the order has already reversed. The REIQ notes that Cotality's median for regional Queensland is $855,835, against $841,198 for regional New South Wales. Regional Queensland is $14,637 higher.

That lead has widened a little. In Cotality's May figures the two medians were $856,168 and $844,686, a difference of $11,482. The June index has regional Queensland values up 0.4 per cent in the month and 1.5 per cent over the quarter, while regional New South Wales was flat in June.

"Regional Queensland" is a broad label in these indexes. It covers everything outside Greater Brisbane, including the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, where values are far above those of inland towns. The single median says that the middle of that very mixed group is now above the middle of regional New South Wales, not that every Queensland town is dearer than its southern counterpart.

Within that group, the fastest growth in Cotality's June tables is inland, not on the coast. Darling Downs West and Maranoa is up 24.0 per cent over twelve months and Toowoomba 20.1 per cent, to a median of $867,646. That fits the Regional Movers Index, which has Toowoomba's inflow from the capitals more than tripling in a year.

What the REIQ draws from it

The institute presents the numbers as a vote of confidence in the state, pointing to Queensland's average annual economic growth of 3.6 per cent since 1989-90 in the ABS state accounts, against 2.3 per cent for New South Wales.

It also draws a warning from the same figures. The release says the state's success reinforces the need to tackle its housing shortage with urgency, if Queensland is to stay attractive to workers, families and investors.

That is the tension in the data. Migration supports demand for homes, and steady demand is one reason Queensland values have kept rising while Sydney's have fallen. The same rise erodes the price advantage that helped bring people north in the first place, and the interstate gain is already less than half what it was in 2020-21.

The next readings arrive on a monthly and a quarterly rhythm. Cotality publishes its July index at the start of August, and the ABS population series behind the migration figures is updated each quarter. At $147,302 on the June medians, the advantage in the capital is still real, and smaller than it was a month ago.

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.

About Kooky and Shaka →