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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Queenslanders rate this as a worse time to buy a home than people in New South Wales or Victoria do. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey released on Tuesday 14 July 2026 gives Queensland a "time to buy a dwelling" reading of 82 for July, against 90 in New South Wales and 91 in Victoria.
The national index rose for a second month, up 5.3 per cent to 85.4. Yet the survey also found that, for the first time since March 2023, fewer than half of consumers expect home prices to rise over the coming year. The two results together explain the Queensland figure: buyers feel better where prices are already coming down, and worse where they are still going up.
The July numbers
The survey was taken from 6 to 9 July among 1,200 adults. Its headline Consumer Sentiment Index rose 4.1 per cent to 83.9, from 80.6 in June. Westpac's Matthew Hassan, quoted by Australian Broker on 14 July, put part of the improvement down to relief that worst-case scenarios on energy prices, interest rates and jobs were not playing out. The same report notes that the index still sits in the bottom 10 per cent of readings in the survey's 50-year history.
On housing, the release says sentiment "remains very unsettled". The time-to-buy index reached 85.4 after rising 12.6 per cent in June and a further 5.3 per cent in July. Westpac stresses that this is a recovery from May's reading of 72, which it calls extremely weak and nearly 50 points below the long-run average of 119. At 85.4 the index is still about 34 points short of that average.
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Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment survey, July 2026, published 14 July 2026. The national index is 85.4.
Why rising prices make buyers less confident
The ranking can look upside down at first. Victoria and New South Wales, where the survey notes dwelling prices have been declining, have the least downbeat buyers. South Australia at 83, Queensland at 82 and Western Australia at 70 are, in the release's words, more pessimistic, in markets where price growth has been relatively strong and prices are still rising.
The explanation is in what the question asks. Respondents are not asked whether property is a good investment. They are asked whether now is a good time to buy a dwelling. For someone who does not yet own, a rising price is a rising cost, and a falling price is the opposite. A market that has run hard, as south-east Queensland's has, leaves would-be buyers facing higher prices and higher interest rates together.
Seen that way, a reading of 82 is a measure of how stretched Queensland buyers feel. It is not evidence that homes are selling slowly, nor that they are selling fast. It says that among the Queenslanders surveyed, those who think it is a bad time to buy outnumber those who think it is a good one by a wide margin, and by a wider margin than in the two largest states.
The June survey did not give a separate Queensland figure. It reported most states in a band of 80 to 86, with Western Australia at 59. July's 82 sits inside that band, so the survey does not show a clear change for Queensland over the month. What changed is that New South Wales and Victoria moved up and away from it.
Related readBrisbane buyers get more room to negotiate as homes take 35 days to sellFewer than half now expect prices to rise
The other housing measure kept falling. The Index of House Price Expectations dropped 8 per cent to 118 in July, which Westpac calls a new three-year low. In June it had already fallen 14.9 per cent to 128.2, slipping under its long-run average of 130.
The detail behind the index shows how divided opinion has become.
| Expectation | Share |
|---|---|
| Prices will rise | 47% |
| No change | 19% |
| Prices will fall | 29% |
| Don't know | 6% |
Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey, July 2026. Shares are rounded by the source and add to 101%.
Westpac says this is the first time since March 2023 that an outright majority has not expected prices to rise. It adds that price expectations pulled back in every state in July. The release gives no state-by-state index values this month. In June, Queensland's reading was 141, the second highest in the country, so the July fall started from a high base, but how far it went is not published.
For a Queensland buyer the two measures pull in different directions. Lower price expectations reduce the fear of missing out that pushes people to bid quickly. A low time-to-buy reading says affordability is still the obstacle. A household can hold both views at once: less worried that prices will run away, and no more able to pay today's price.
Rate expectations: fewer see rises, more are unsure
Interest rates run through every answer. The release notes that the Reserve Bank left the cash rate on hold at its June meeting, after increases at each of the three meetings before it. Consumers responded. About 60 per cent now expect mortgage rates to rise over the next 12 months, down from 66 per cent in June, and the Mortgage Rate Expectations Index fell 5.8 per cent to 162.6. The share expecting rises of more than one percentage point also declined.
Related readBrisbane open homes draw 59 per cent fewer visitors than a year agoWhat grew was uncertainty. According to the Melbourne Institute release, 17 per cent of consumers said they simply did not know where rates were headed, the highest share since March 2022.
Westpac's own forecast is less relaxed than the average household's. The bank expects the June quarter inflation figures to show inflation running too high, and a further increase of 25 basis points from the Reserve Bank Board in August. Australian Broker reports that the June quarter consumer price index is due on 29 July. A forecast is not a decision, and the Board will set the rate at its August meeting on the evidence in front of it.
Two indexes that read in opposite directions
On the time-to-buy index a higher number is better news for buyers. On the mortgage rate and unemployment expectations indexes a higher number means more people expect rates or unemployment to rise. July's falls in both are improvements.
The household picture behind the housing answers
Other parts of the survey improved in July. The sub-index for family finances compared with a year ago rose 5.6 per cent to 71.1, and the one for family finances over the next 12 months rose 13.4 per cent to 96.5. Westpac links part of that to lower fuel costs, and says renters, younger people and lower-income earners reported the strongest gains in how they assess their finances.
Fears about jobs eased too. The Unemployment Expectations Index fell 7.1 per cent to 129.9. On this measure a lower number means fewer people expect unemployment to rise, and the release describes the move as a significant improvement that returns the index to around its long-run average.
Those are the conditions that sit underneath any decision to buy. A household that feels more secure in its income and a little better off than a month ago is closer to being a buyer, even if it still thinks the timing is poor. The gap between the improved finance readings and the still-weak housing reading suggests the remaining obstacle is the cost of the purchase itself: the price and the rate.
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The survey interviews 1,200 people nationally. Queensland's share of that sample is a few hundred at most, so a state reading carries a wider margin of error than the national one and can shift by several points from month to month without anything real having changed. A gap of eight or nine points between Queensland and the two southern states is large enough to notice. A gap of one point between Queensland and South Australia is not.
The survey also treats the state as one market. It does not distinguish Brisbane from Cairns, Townsville or the Darling Downs, and it does not distinguish houses from units. Buyers of an apartment in inner Brisbane and buyers of a house in a regional city face different prices and different competition, and the survey averages them together.
Finally, sentiment is not activity. The index has been well under its long-run average of 119 throughout the recovery from May's low. People continue to buy homes when sentiment is weak, because jobs change, families grow and leases end. What the reading describes is how those buyers feel about the terms on offer.
What to watch from here
Two dates follow. The June quarter inflation figures on 29 July will shape expectations for the Reserve Bank Board's August meeting. The August edition of the sentiment survey will then show whether the time-to-buy index keeps recovering, and whether Queensland stays below the southern states.
For now the July survey leaves Queensland in an unusual position. Its buyers are among the least confident on the mainland about timing, in a state where prices have held up better than in Sydney or Melbourne, and at a moment when the country as a whole has stopped assuming that prices only go one way.
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.
