# Domain forecasts Brisbane house price growth of 3% to 7% next year
Forecasts reported by the ABC on 25 June have Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth still rising in the 2026-27 financial year while Sydney and Melbourne houses are tipped to fall.
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Brisbane house prices are forecast to rise between 3 and 7 per cent in the 2026-27 financial year, according to Domain forecasts reported by ABC News on 25 June 2026. The same forecasts have Sydney and Melbourne leading a national downturn, with house prices in both cities expected to fall.
The outlook is a forecast, not a measurement, and Domain gives it as a range for each city. It is still the clearest statement so far from a major property data company that the market's split between the two largest capitals and the mid-sized ones is expected to last another year.
## The ranges, city by city
Domain's forecast covers houses and units in six capitals, and the combined capitals. For houses, three cities are expected to fall and three to rise. The ABC published the house ranges, and Domain's own summary of its forecast report for the 2027 financial year adds the unit ranges for each city.
Domain's price forecasts for 2026-27Forecast change over the financial year
City
Houses
Units
Perth
+5% to +9%
+7% to +11%
Adelaide
+4% to +8%
+4% to +8%
Brisbane
+3% to +7%
+5% to +9%
Canberra
-4% to 0%
-4% to 0%
Sydney
-7% to -3%
-3% to -1%
Melbourne
-8% to -4%
-3% to -1%
Sources: Domain forecasts as reported by ABC News, 25 June 2026 (houses), and as published by Domain (units). Forecasts, not recorded prices.
Brisbane's house range is the lowest of the three rising cities, and its low end is still positive. For the combined capitals, the ABC reports a house range of minus 2.5 to plus 1.5 per cent, which is another way of saying that the rises and the falls roughly cancel.
Even at the top of the range, 7 per cent would be a sharp step down from the pace of the past year. Cotality's Home Value Index for May put Brisbane house values 18.6 per cent higher than twelve months earlier, and 0.8 per cent higher over the month. Domain's own summary describes the Brisbane outlook as much more subdued than the growth of the past six years, in a market it still regards as undersupplied.
For Sydney, the ABC reports, the forecast implies the median house price could drop by as much as $122,000, and Melbourne's median house price could fall below $1 million.
Australian Associated Press, reporting the same forecasts on 25 June, gave single figures for all dwellings: a rise of 5.5 per cent in Brisbane, 6.0 per cent in Adelaide and 7.4 per cent in Perth, against falls of 3.3 per cent in Sydney and 4.4 per cent in Melbourne. On those figures the combined capitals would rise by just 0.1 per cent over the year.
## What the forecast assumes
The ABC report names two forces behind the numbers. The first is interest rates: the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate in February, March and May, which reduces how much buyers can borrow. The Board held the rate at 4.35 per cent in a unanimous decision on 16 June, while saying it would raise it further if required.
Domain's working assumption, as the ABC reports it, is that 4.35 per cent is the peak and that the first cut comes in the second quarter of 2027. That is close to the Commonwealth Bank's published view, which has cuts in May and August 2027. If rates rise again instead, the forecast's starting point no longer holds.
The second force is the federal Budget's changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, which reduce the incentive for some investors to buy established homes. The measures are due to start on 1 July 2027, the day after the forecast period ends, and the ABC describes them as now almost certain to pass parliament. Their effect on the coming year is through what investors do in anticipation.
The same ABC report carries a view on what the tax changes mean for tenants. JP Morgan's economists expect the negative gearing change to be neutral to slightly supportive of rents, because existing investment properties keep their current treatment, and they forecast rents to rise by a little under 4 per cent a year.
Both forces apply nationally, so the difference between cities comes from somewhere else. Domain's explanation is that a change in interest rates affects Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra the most, because buyers there tend to borrow more, while undersupplied markets such as Brisbane and Perth keep some momentum even as their growth slows.
Worth knowing
A forecast range is neither a floor nor a ceiling
A range of 3% to 7% is what Domain's model considers likely under its assumptions about rates, lending and supply. It is not a guarantee that Brisbane house prices cannot rise less than 3% or more than 7%, and the assumptions themselves can change.
## Units tipped to do better than houses
The forecasts favour units in almost every city. In the rising markets, Domain expects units to gain more than houses in Brisbane and Perth. In the falling ones, it expects Sydney and Melbourne units to lose 1 to 3 per cent, well short of the falls forecast for houses.
The ABC reports Domain's reasoning: first-home buyer schemes and tighter borrowing limits are steering first-time buyers into the market through units, the cheaper property type.
For Brisbane the unit range is 5 to 9 per cent, and it carries a symbolic consequence. According to the Australian Associated Press report, a rise at the top of that range would take Brisbane's median unit price to $893,000 in 2027, while Sydney's is expected to be no higher than $855,000. On Domain's measure, Queensland's capital would then have the most expensive units in the country.
That would continue what other data already shows. Cotality's May figures had Brisbane unit values up 21.8 per cent over twelve months, against 18.6 per cent for houses, and its June chart pack, published on 18 June, found that the household income needed to buy a median unit in Sydney is now only about $2,000 higher than in Brisbane. Domain and Cotality calculate their medians differently, so the dollar figures from the two companies are not interchangeable, but they describe the same convergence.
AAP also reported Domain's view of why investors remain active in Brisbane: tight rental markets and population growth make it more likely there that a buyer finds a property whose rent covers its costs.
## Where owners stand before any slowdown
The ABC report adds a piece of context about how much room owners have. Cotality's Pain and Gain analysis of about 101,000 resales nationally in the March quarter found that almost all of them made a profit.
How resales fared in the March quarter 2026Australia, about 101,000 resales
Measure
Result
Share sold for more than the purchase price
96%
Same share, December quarter 2025
95.9%
Median gain on profitable resales
$377,000
Median loss on loss-making resales
$45,000
Median time held before a loss-making sale
4.3 years
Source: Cotality Pain and Gain report, March quarter 2026, as reported by ABC News on 25 June 2026. National figures.
The ABC notes that the share of profitable resales is the highest since 2005 and that the median gain is a record. The owners who sold at a loss had typically bought around late 2021 or early 2022.
These are national figures and they predate the falls now being recorded in the largest cities. Cotality has identified 123 suburbs where values fell 5 per cent or more between January and May, overwhelmingly in greater Sydney and Melbourne, the ABC reports. No Queensland suburb is named in that list.
## How this compares with other forecasts
Forecasters have revised their numbers repeatedly this year, and they do not use the same calendar. The Commonwealth Bank lowered its national forecast for calendar 2026 from growth of about 5 per cent in March to 3 per cent at the Budget and to no change on 4 June. Westpac, as Mortgage Professional Australia reported on 27 May, expects a rise of 1 per cent in 2026 and 3 per cent in 2027. Domain's combined-capitals figure for the year to June 2027 sits in the same narrow band around zero.
On Brisbane, the published views agree on direction. The Commonwealth Bank's June note places the city among those still growing at a slower pace, and Domain's range puts a number on it. Neither points to a fall for Brisbane over the coming year.
Forecasts for a whole city also hide large differences inside it. A figure for Brisbane houses says nothing specific about a townhouse in Logan, an acreage property in the Sunshine Coast hinterland or an apartment on the Gold Coast, none of which Domain's reported forecast covers separately. On regional markets, Domain's summary says only that growth is strong where agribusiness and domestic tourism are doing well.
The forecast period begins on 1 July. Cotality's index for June is due that day, and the Reserve Bank's Board next meets on 10 and 11 August. For Queensland, the message of the forecast is slower growth, not a reversal. Whether the next twelve months land inside Domain's range will depend heavily on the path of interest rates, which the Reserve Bank has left open.