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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The two coasts held more auctions than Brisbane in the first week of July, and sold a larger share of them. Final figures from Cotality, published on Thursday 9 July, show the Gold Coast clearing 35.9 per cent of 64 auctions and the Sunshine Coast 35.0 per cent of 60 in the week ending 5 July. Brisbane's final clearance rate for the same week was 23.5 per cent, from 119 auctions.
Cotality calls the Brisbane figure the city's weakest reading since late April 2020. The firm's count shows 77 of the 119 homes were passed in, which is close to two in every three.
| Market | Auctions | Sold | Clearance rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brisbane | 119 | about 28 | 23.5% |
| Gold Coast | 64 | 23 | 35.9% |
| Sunshine Coast | 60 | 21 | 35.0% |
Cotality final clearance rates, week ending 5 July 2026, published 9 July 2026. Brisbane sold count derived from the published rate and total.
The coasts, added together
The Gold Coast's 64 auctions and the Sunshine Coast's 60 make 124 between them, five more than the capital's 119. Of those 124, Cotality records 44 as cleared, a combined rate of about 35.5 per cent.
That is still fewer than four in ten. It does mean a home taken to auction on either coast was around half as likely again to sell that week as one in Brisbane. On the Gold Coast, 41 of the 64 did not clear. On the Sunshine Coast, 39 of the 60 did not.
The final figures confirm what Monday's early count had suggested. Cotality's preliminary summary of 6 July had the Gold Coast at 35.7 per cent, from 20 sales among 56 results, and the Sunshine Coast at 38.9 per cent, from 21 sales among 54. The Gold Coast added three sales as its last eight results came in. The Sunshine Coast added none, and its rate slipped by 3.9 points as the remaining auctions were counted as unsold.
Related readNearly one in four auctions withdrawn as vendors step backThe size of the Sunshine Coast's week is itself unusual. In the three weeks to 21 June, Cotality's final tables showed the region holding 23, 26 and 30 auctions, and its early count for the week ending 28 June was 26. Sixty is double the largest of those. The Gold Coast's 64 compares with 50, 54 and 43 in the same three June weeks. Cotality does not comment on the regional rows, so the reason for the jump is not given.
Sub-region figures deserve some care. With 60 or so auctions, two or three results either way move the rate by several points, and one week on the coast can look quite different from the next. The Gold Coast's own recent finals show it: 32.0 per cent in the week ending 7 June, 31.5 per cent the week after and 23.3 per cent in the week ending 21 June, before this week's 35.9 per cent. The comparison is worth making because the three markets share buyers, agents and auctioneers, and this week they did not share a result.
Where Brisbane's week went
The final Brisbane rate of 23.5 per cent is almost the same as the preliminary 23.8 per cent Cotality published on Monday 6 July, so late results did little to change the picture. Monday's count held 24 sales among 101 results. A rate of 23.5 per cent on 119 auctions is about 28 sales. With 77 passed in, the remaining 14 or so were withdrawn before the day, on those figures.
Passed in is the bigger group by a wide margin, and that matters for how the week is read. A withdrawn auction is a seller stepping away from the method. A passed-in auction is a seller who went through with it and a reserve that bidders did not reach. Cotality's commentary draws the same conclusion in its own terms: among the Brisbane owners who chose auction, it says, buyers and vendors are a long way apart on price.
Related readNo long weekend, yet Brisbane auction numbers fall by almost a thirdThe pass-in share has also grown. In the week ending 7 June, the previous low point of the winter, Cotality put Brisbane's pass-in rate at 56.3 per cent. This week 77 of 119 is 64.7 per cent. Across the combined capitals the figure was about 37 per cent, with roughly 540 of 1,443 auctions passed in and about 230 withdrawn.
The week before, ending 28 June, Brisbane's final rate was 36.8 per cent from 136 auctions, according to Cotality's 2 July release. The drop to 23.5 per cent is 13.3 percentage points in a single week.
Six weeks of final figures
Placed in sequence, the Thursday figures since the end of May show a city that had been steady at a low level and then stepped down, while the national rate drifted lower by degrees.
Source: Cotality final clearance rates for each week, as reported in its weekly releases up to 9 July 2026. The combined capitals rate is a weighted average.
For five weeks Brisbane's final rate stayed between 34.1 and 39.9 per cent, and its distance from the combined capitals narrowed from about 13 points in the week ending 7 June to about seven in the week ending 21 June. This week the gap is 22.5 points, the widest of the period.
The number of auctions has moved less than the rate. Brisbane's final counts in the five weeks from 7 June were 135, 142, 144, 136 and 119.
The national picture
Across the combined capitals, the final clearance rate for the week ending 5 July was 46.0 per cent from 1,443 auctions, up 1.0 percentage point on the week before. Cotality notes the combined rate has now been under 50 per cent for six consecutive weeks, and that it sits 21.9 percentage points under the 67.9 per cent recorded in the same week of 2025. Volume was 17.4 per cent lower than the week before and 19.6 per cent lower than a year earlier. The firm adds that its four-week average clearance rate has dropped sharply since the start of 2026.
Related readPassed in at auction: what happens next for seller and highest bidderCanberra was the only capital over 50 per cent, at 52.4 per cent from 63 auctions. Melbourne finalised at 49.6 per cent from 583 and Sydney at 46.4 per cent from 556, each about three points better than the week before. Adelaide came in at 45.5 per cent, down from 53.4 per cent.
Both coasts, in other words, were roughly ten points under the capital city average, and Brisbane was more than 22 points under it. Among the regional markets Cotality reports, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie in New South Wales was the strongest, with 11 of 18 auctions sold, or 61.1 per cent.
After a pass-in in Queensland
Seventy-seven Brisbane campaigns reached the end of their auction without a sale. State rules set out what each side can do from there.
Two business days decide whether a cooling-off period applies
The Queensland Government's guidance says a seller whose reserve is not met need not sell and may negotiate with bidders. A registered bidder who then buys within two business days of the auction gets no cooling-off period. A sale agreed after that window carries one.
That window explains part of the difference between an auction-day result and a final clearance rate. Cotality counts a home as sold if the sale is known when it finalises the week's figures on Thursday, whether the deal was struck before the auction, under the hammer or in the days after. A Saturday auction that is passed in and sold on the following Monday appears in the sold column.
This week that route added little. Brisbane's count of sales rose from 24 on Monday to about 28 on Thursday, while 18 further auctions were added to the total.
The government's guidance for sellers also explains a bid that buyers sometimes misread. A seller may bid on their own property up to the reserve, and the auctioneer must announce it as a vendor bid. An auction can therefore be passed in on a vendor bid, with no genuine offer at that level at all, which is one reason a pass-in tells bidders little about what the owner would accept.
The week ahead
Cotality's preview for the week ending 12 July lists 133 Brisbane auctions, 11.8 per cent more than the 119 held this week and 30.4 per cent more than the 102 held in the same week of 2025, even as the national total is expected to slip 5.9 per cent to 1,358. Melbourne has 572 scheduled and Sydney 498. Brisbane sellers who have booked a date are, on that count, keeping it.
The week is also the last of the Queensland mid-year school holidays, which the Department of Education's term dates show ending on Sunday 12 July. Beyond it, Cotality expects about 1,300 capital city auctions the following week and around 1,200 the week after that.
The firm's preliminary results for the week ending 12 July are due on Monday 13 July.
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.
