CPI rents hold at 3.6 per cent as housing leads Brisbane inflation

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Kooky

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Rents measured in the Consumer Price Index rose 3.6 per cent in the twelve months to July 2026, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on 26 August. The annual rate is unchanged from June and from May. For Brisbane, the bureau put overall annual inflation at 3.7 per cent.

The Queensland Government Statistician's Office, in its summary of the same release, says the housing group made the largest contribution to Brisbane's inflation over the year to July, at 1.30 percentage points. On those two figures, housing accounts for a little over a third of the city's annual price rise, since 1.30 divided by 3.7 is about 35 per cent.

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Consumer Price Index, July 2026; Queensland Government Statistician's Office summary, both released 26 August 2026.

What the July release showed

Nationally, the CPI rose 3.5 per cent over the year to July, down from 3.8 per cent in June, the ABS said. Trimmed mean inflation, the underlying measure that strips out the largest price movements in either direction, was steady at 3.6 per cent. In the month of July itself prices rose 1.0 per cent, after falls of 0.1 per cent in June and 0.7 per cent in May.

Housing was the group that rose most. The ABS reports that it increased 5.0 per cent over the year, down from 6.8 per cent the month before, and it names three items behind the rise: new dwellings, up 5.7 per cent, rents, up 3.6 per cent, and electricity, up 6.1 per cent.

Almost all of the slowdown in the housing group came from electricity. Its annual rise fell from 22.4 per cent in June to 6.1 per cent in July, and the bureau says the remaining rise is largely due to the ending of Commonwealth and state government electricity rebates. In monthly terms electricity prices fell 1.6 per cent after the annual price reviews. New dwellings barely moved, from 5.8 per cent to 5.7 per cent, with the ABS noting that project home builders have been passing on higher costs for materials and labour.

Rents did not move at all. Among the other groups, the bureau lists annual rises of 4.9 per cent for clothing and footwear, 4.8 per cent for education, 4.5 per cent for alcohol and tobacco, 3.8 per cent for health and 3.2 per cent for food and non-alcoholic beverages. Transport rose 1.6 per cent, up from 0.1 per cent in June, after automotive fuel jumped 7.5 per cent in the month. On those figures rents, at 3.6 per cent, are rising at close to the same pace as prices in general and exactly in line with the trimmed mean.

Housing's share of the Brisbane figure

Brisbane's 3.7 per cent sits in the middle of the capitals. The ABS has Hobart at 4.5 per cent, Adelaide at 4.4 per cent, Perth at 3.8 per cent, Darwin level with Brisbane at 3.7 per cent, and Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra at 3.2 per cent. Brisbane is therefore 0.2 of a percentage point above the national rate and half a point above the three south-eastern capitals. Like the national index, Brisbane's rose 1.0 per cent in the month.

The housing group in the CPI is wider than rent. It also covers the cost of new dwellings bought by owner-occupiers and electricity, among other items. According to the Queensland summary, housing was the largest of the eleven groups in Brisbane's result, no group subtracted from inflation over the year, and Brisbane recorded stronger contributions than the national average from housing, alcohol and tobacco, and transport.

One figure in the summary helps explain why. In Brisbane, the subgroup for new dwellings purchased by owner-occupiers rose 8.7 per cent over the year, well above the 5.7 per cent the ABS reports nationally. That is a building cost, not a rent, but it feeds the same housing group.

The contribution has shrunk since June. The Statistician's Office's summary of the June release, published on 29 July, had Brisbane's annual inflation at 4.0 per cent and housing's contribution at 1.58 percentage points, about 40 per cent of the total, with electricity in Brisbane up 19.8 per cent over the year. A month later housing contributes 1.30 points to a rate of 3.7 per cent. Its share has gone from about 40 per cent to about 35 per cent, and the electricity rebate effect is the obvious reason.

Neither the ABS release nor the Queensland summary gives a separate rent figure for Brisbane for July, so the 3.6 per cent is a national reading across the capital cities. What can be said for Brisbane is that housing costs as a whole added more to inflation over the year than any other group.

Why 3.6 per cent sits below the listing figures

The CPI figure looks low next to the numbers quoted from the listings market over recent weeks. The difference comes mostly from what each series measures.

The three rows do not describe the same homes, the same places or the same months, so the gaps between them are not a like-for-like comparison. They do show the pattern. A series built from advertisements records what a new tenant would be asked to pay for a home that is vacant today. A price index of rents within the CPI basket reflects what households are paying, and most tenants in any given month are part-way through an agreement at a rent set earlier.

The scale of the listings market shows how small that slice is. SQM Research counted 3,057 vacant rental homes in Brisbane in July, a vacancy rate of 0.9 per cent, which implies a rental stock of several hundred thousand homes. The asking rent series speaks for the few thousand on offer. The CPI speaks for everyone who is renting, including the large majority who did not move this year.

Queensland's own rules slow the pass-through. Under the state's rental laws, as summarised by the Residential Tenancies Authority, rent can be increased only once every 12 months, a limit that began on 1 July 2023, and since 6 June 2024 it has attached to the property and not to the tenancy. Since that date an agreement must also state when the rent was last increased, and a tenant can ask for written proof. A rise in advertised rents therefore reaches sitting tenants in steps, a year or more apart, and some owners choose not to take the full step.

The order of the three measures is what that mechanism would produce. Advertised rents move first and furthest, an index of rental values sits in between, and the rents households actually pay follow last. The same order can reverse when a market cools: asking rents can flatten while the CPI measure is still catching up on earlier increases.

A steady rate, not a falling one

The ABS describes the July rate as unchanged for a third month. Steady annual growth of 3.6 per cent still means rents in the index are rising, only no faster than in May. It is also above the top of the Reserve Bank's 2 to 3 per cent target band for inflation as a whole, which is one reason rents remain a closely watched line in each release.

The listings data for Queensland's capital shows no easing on the supply side over the same period. SQM put Brisbane's vacancy rate at 0.9 per cent in July, the same as a year earlier. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland recorded 1.0 per cent for the Brisbane local government area in the June quarter, also unchanged, while finding more vacancies in 27 of the state's 50 regions.

SQM's release of 13 August did show the pace of asking rents coming off a little. Brisbane's annual growth was 8.3 per cent, against 9.1 per cent a month earlier, and the national figure was 7.2 per cent, against 8.1 per cent. If that continues, the gap between the top and bottom rows of the table will narrow from above.

Cotality's Rental Review for the June quarter, published on 9 July, put Brisbane's median rent at $734 a week and the national median at $705. It also offered a longer view of the cost to tenants: national rents up 40.6 per cent over five years, an increase of $204 a week.

The CPI moves at the pace of rents already being paid. Asking rents show where the next agreements may start.

What the figures mean on each side of a lease

For tenants, the two ends of the table describe two different experiences. A household that stayed put over the past year is, on average, the household the CPI describes. A household that had to move is the one facing asking rents. The second group is smaller but bears most of the increase, which is why moving has become the expensive moment in a tenancy.

For owners and property managers, the CPI release is a reminder that the housing group contains their costs as well as their income. Electricity, building costs and the other housing items rose 5.0 per cent as a group, faster than the 3.6 per cent recorded for rents. An owner whose rent has followed the index has seen costs in the same group rise more quickly.

Neither reading settles who is better or worse off in a particular tenancy, because the index is an average across the capitals and says nothing about an individual agreement.

What comes next

The ABS publishes its August CPI at the end of September. The bureau has also said that from February 2027 the monthly CPI will be released on the fourth Wednesday of each month, in place of the final Wednesday.

The Queensland Government Statistician's Office issues a Brisbane summary with each release, which is where the housing group's contribution to the city's inflation can be followed month by month. August will show whether it keeps falling now that the largest part of the electricity effect has passed.

For readers comparing figures, the useful habit is to check which measure a headline is quoting. A report of rents rising 8 per cent and a report of rents rising less than 4 per cent can both be accurate in the same week.

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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