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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Queensland was the state where the largest share of property investors sold in the past year, according to the 2026 Annual Investor Sentiment Survey released by the Property Investment Professionals of Australia on Friday 11 September 2026. Of the investors who reported selling at least one property in the year to August, 37.1 per cent sold in Queensland, ahead of Victoria on 29.9 per cent and New South Wales on 22.7 per cent.
The same survey has investors ranking Queensland as the second most investor-friendly jurisdiction in the country. The two findings sit side by side in the industry body's results, and together they describe a state that investors still rate well and are nonetheless leaving in greater numbers than any other.
What the survey measured
PIPA is the industry association for property investment advisers, and it has run the survey each year as a reading of how small investors see the market. The 2026 edition was conducted online in August and drew 626 respondents from the databases of PIPA and of the Property Investors Council of Australia, the body that represents investors themselves. It is a survey of people who chose to answer, not a random sample of every landlord in the country, and its results are best read as the views of engaged investors rather than as a census.
Its headline is the share of investors who sold. The survey found 18.3 per cent of respondents sold at least one investment property in the year to August 2026, up from 16.7 per cent in 2025 and 14.1 per cent in 2024. PIPA describes this as a third consecutive annual rise.
Related readShort-stay letting in Queensland: what councils and bodies corporate allowPIPA Annual Investor Sentiment Survey 2026, 626 respondents, conducted in August 2026. PIPA notes that some questions allowed more than one answer.
Brisbane and regional Queensland in the figures
The Queensland share is made of two parts in the survey's breakdown by location. Brisbane was named by 23.7 per cent of sellers, up from 19.7 per cent in the 2025 survey, which makes it the single most common place to have sold. Regional Queensland was named by a further 13.4 per cent, the highest of any regional market, ahead of regional Victoria on 10.3 per cent and regional New South Wales on 9.3 per cent.
Other capitals moved in different directions. Melbourne's share of sellers eased to 19.6 per cent from 22.1 per cent. Sydney's more than doubled, to 13.4 per cent from 6.3 per cent, and the share for New South Wales as a whole rose to 22.7 per cent from 11.8 per cent a year earlier. Perth's fell to 7.2 per cent from 11 per cent.
A high share of sales does not, on its own, mean investors think poorly of a place. Queensland has been one of the most popular states to buy in for several years, so there are simply more investor-owned homes there to sell, and many of them have risen in value. The survey's own reasons for selling point both ways: 21.7 per cent of sellers said they sold to realise a capital gain, while larger groups cited costs.
Why they sold, and to whom
The most common reason given for selling was increased compliance and general holding costs, named by 37.1 per cent of sellers. Increased land tax and government charges came next at 29.9 per cent, followed by realising capital gains at 21.7 per cent and reducing debt at 14.4 per cent. Respondents could give more than one reason.
Related readTreasury draft gives new homes 24 months to keep negative gearingThose selling were mostly long-term owners. The most common holding period among sellers was 10 to 20 years, at 37.1 per cent, followed by three to seven years at 33 per cent and seven to 10 years at 21.7 per cent.
The buyers matter for the rental market. More than half of those who sold, 51.6 per cent, sold at least one property to an owner-occupier, up from 37 per cent in the previous survey. A home sold by a landlord to someone who moves in leaves the rental pool, while the household that bought it also stops renting somewhere else, so the net effect on tenants depends on who the buyer was and where they lived before. The survey does not measure that second step.
PIPA's chair, Cate Bakos, put the motive plainly in the release: "Investors are not selling because they think it is a smart time to sell." Only 7.6 per cent of respondents said now was a good time to sell, down from 36 per cent in 2025.
Cash flow under pressure
The survey's second theme is the cost of holding a rental property. It found 62.3 per cent of investors were in negative cash flow, meaning the rent did not cover the loan and the running costs, up from 56 per cent a year earlier. PIPA notes that the figure was as low as 30 per cent in 2022, before the run of interest rate rises.
Costs other than interest have moved as well. Some 41.7 per cent of respondents said their holding costs, such as insurance, compliance, land tax and management fees, had risen by between 11 and 20 per cent over the past year, and a further 15 per cent reported increases of 21 to 40 per cent. The trade publication The Adviser, reporting the same survey, added that 41.5 per cent of respondents described their cash flow as tight and 8.8 per cent were drawing on savings to cover shortfalls.
Related readUnlicensed short-stay manager fined: what Queensland owners should checkThese are self-reported figures and they vary a great deal from one owner to the next. An investor who bought in Brisbane a decade ago with a small remaining loan is in a very different position from one who bought last year at current prices and rates.
The tax changes and future buying
The 2026 survey is the first since the Federal Budget of 12 May announced limits on negative gearing and a new method for taxing capital gains, both due to start on 1 July 2027. The results show a marked fall in the intention to buy.
PIPA Annual Investor Sentiment Survey 2026. The share seeing the next 12 months as favourable was close to 60 per cent in the 2025 survey.
Among those who had dropped plans to invest, 63 per cent said the negative gearing and capital gains tax changes had influenced the decision. Asked directly about the reforms, 21.5 per cent of respondents said they were unlikely to buy unless the changes were repealed, 12.6 per cent said they were less likely to buy and 11.8 per cent said they had paused their plans. Another 14.7 per cent said the reforms had not affected their intentions.
Not all of the response is selling. The survey found 18.7 per cent of investors were holding properties for longer because of policy uncertainty. Two-thirds, 66.8 per cent, expected the capital gains changes to affect their retirement planning to a moderate, significant or severe degree, and 12 per cent expected to make major adjustments.
The confidence figure is the starkest in the release: 87.2 per cent of respondents said they lacked confidence that future governments would keep tax settings stable, and 50.4 per cent said they had no confidence at all.
Related readBank figures put investors at 35.6 per cent of new home loans in JuneHow investors rate Queensland as a place to invest
PIPA asked respondents to rank the states and territories by how friendly they are to investors, and converted the answers to an average score out of eight. Western Australia came first with 6.99. Queensland was second with 6.01. At the other end, Victoria scored 2.21 and was ranked last by 62 per cent of respondents, while the Australian Capital Territory had the lowest average score at 2.16.
For Queensland the ranking reflects settings that investors compare across borders: land tax, tenancy rules, and how often those rules change. A second place among eight jurisdictions suggests that the investors selling in Brisbane and the regions are, for the most part, not doing so because of the state's own policies. The reasons the survey records, holding costs, interest and federal tax changes, apply everywhere; Queensland simply has more investor-owned homes that have gained enough value to make selling worthwhile.
A sentiment survey records what investors say, not what the market did
The 626 respondents were drawn from the mailing lists of two industry bodies and answered voluntarily. The percentages describe that group. Official counts of investor activity come from lending and sales data, which measure transactions rather than opinions.
What the official numbers add
The survey arrives four weeks after the first official figures to cover the post-Budget period. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on 14 August that the number of new investor home loans fell 8.6 per cent nationally in the June quarter and 10.1 per cent in Queensland. Those figures count investors buying, where the PIPA survey counts investors selling and their intentions, and both point the same way.
Neither source can yet say what the combined effect will be on the number of rental homes in the state. That depends on how many of the homes sold by investors were bought by other investors, how many by former tenants, and how much new rental housing is built under the rules that favour new dwellings. The ABS will publish September quarter lending figures on 11 November 2026, and the legislation defining a new dwelling for tax purposes was still in draft at the time of the survey's release.
PIPA makes the full report available on request through its website. The results published on 11 September are a summary, and the state rankings and location shares in this article are taken from the association's media release of that date.
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.
