# Queenslanders' house price expectations drop 15 per cent in a month

The June Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey shows Queensland households far less sure prices will keep rising, while the 'time to buy' reading recovers from a deep low.

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Queensland households have sharply marked down what they expect home prices to do. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey published on Tuesday 9 June 2026 puts the state's house price expectations index at 141 for June, down 15 per cent in a single month, although that is still one of the highest readings in the country.

The same survey shows the national "time to buy a dwelling" index recovering part of May's steep fall, rising 12.6 per cent to 81.1. For anyone weighing a purchase in Queensland this winter, the two numbers describe a market where buyers feel a little less shut out than a month ago, and a good deal less certain that waiting will cost them.

<div class="keyfacts">
<div><b>141</b><span>Queensland house price expectations index, June</span></div>
<div><b>81.1</b><span>national "time to buy a dwelling" index</span></div>
<div><b>4.5%</b><span>name real estate the wisest place for savings</span></div>
</div>
<p class="src">Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment survey, June 2026, published 9 June 2026. Survey of 1,200 adults taken 1 to 5 June.</p>

## What the June survey found

The survey is run each month by the Melbourne Institute for Westpac. The June edition was taken between 1 and 5 June among 1,200 adults across Australia, weighted to match the population. Its headline, the Consumer Sentiment Index, fell 2.9 per cent to 80.6, from 83 in May. A reading of 100 is the point where optimists and pessimists are in equal number, so anything in the low 80s means pessimists clearly outnumber optimists.

The housing questions sit inside that broader survey. Respondents are asked whether now is a good or a bad time to buy a dwelling, and where they expect home prices to be in a year. Westpac described housing sentiment in June as "very unsettled", and named three reasons: price falls in some markets, interest rate rises that have happened and more that households expect, and the changes to the tax treatment of investor housing announced in the Federal Budget in May.

According to the release, the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of House Price Expectations fell 14.9 per cent nationally to 128.2. That takes it under its long-run average of 130 for the first time in nearly three years. Among respondents who offered a view, 52 per cent still expect prices to rise over the next 12 months. In May the share was 66 per cent.

## Where Queensland sits among the states

The fall was not even across the country. Westpac reports the biggest pull-backs in New South Wales, down 19 per cent to 125, and Victoria, down 18 per cent to 121. The bank links those two readings to what is already happening on the ground: Sydney and Melbourne, it says, are recording significant price corrections.

Queensland's fall of 15 per cent was almost as large in percentage terms, but it started from a much higher level. At 141 the state's index is still 11 points above the national long-run average of 130, and Westpac describes it as "still relatively elevated". South Australia, at 142 after a 6 per cent fall, is the only state with a higher reading. Western Australia barely moved, slipping 1 per cent to 134.

<figure class="fig"><figcaption><b>House price expectations by state, June 2026</b><span>Index; the national long-run average is 130</span></figcaption>
<div class="scroll"><svg viewBox="0 0 680 242" role="img" aria-label="Bar chart: house price expectations index in June 2026 is 142 in South Australia, 141 in Queensland, 134 in Western Australia, 125 in New South Wales and 121 in Victoria.">
<text class="lb" x="176" y="33" text-anchor="end">South Australia</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="14" width="400" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="600" y="33">142</text>
<text class="lb" x="176" y="79" text-anchor="end">Queensland</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="60" width="397" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="597" y="79">141</text>
<text class="lb" x="176" y="125" text-anchor="end">Western Australia</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="106" width="377" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="577" y="125">134</text>
<text class="lb" x="176" y="171" text-anchor="end">New South Wales</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="152" width="352" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="552" y="171">125</text>
<text class="lb" x="176" y="217" text-anchor="end">Victoria</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="198" width="341" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="541" y="217">121</text>
</svg></div>
<p class="src">Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of House Price Expectations, June 2026. The national index is 128.2.</p></figure>

The pattern is consistent with where prices have been moving. In the states where households can already see values slipping, expectations have dropped below the long-run average. In Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, a majority still looks for gains, but the Queensland reading shows that confidence can change quickly even where no correction has been recorded.

## A partial recovery in the time-to-buy reading

The second housing measure moved the other way. The "time to buy a dwelling" index rose 12.6 per cent to 81.1 in June. Westpac is careful to call this a partial recovery: May's reading of 72 was, in the bank's words, extremely weak, and nearly 50 points below the long-run average of 119. At 81.1 the index is still about 38 points under that average.

By state, the release says buyer sentiment sits in a range of 80 to 86 across most of the country, with Western Australia the exception at 59. It does not publish a separate June figure for Queensland, so the state can only be placed inside that 80 to 86 band.

The index does not measure how many people are buying. It measures the balance of opinion on whether the moment is a good one. It tends to fall when prices and interest rates are rising, because both make a purchase harder to fund, and to recover when either eases. That is why falling price expectations and a rising time-to-buy reading can appear in the same month: a household that no longer expects prices to run away may feel less pressure, even if it does not yet feel well placed to act.

For Queensland buyers the distinction matters. A reading in the low 80s says most respondents still think it is a poor time to buy. It does not say that homes have become cheaper, and it does not say that lenders will approve more. It says the mood among would-be buyers has stopped getting worse.

## Interest rates remain the main worry

Borrowing costs are a large part of that mood. Westpac notes that the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Board raised the cash rate at each of its previous three meetings, and that the Board next meets on 15 and 16 June. The bank's economists expect a pause at that meeting while the Board assesses the effect of the earlier moves, with further increases at later meetings still in their forecast. That is Westpac's expectation, not a decision.

Households are braced for more. The Mortgage Rate Expectations Index, which tracks what consumers think will happen to variable home loan rates over the coming year, was 172.6 in June. It fell 4.8 per cent in the month, and the release says just over two-thirds of consumers expect mortgage rates to rise further over the next 12 months. That is still a clear majority, though smaller than the 74 per cent recorded in May.

The survey's measures of household budgets weakened as well. The sub-index tracking family finances compared with a year ago fell 7.5 per cent to 67.3, and the one tracking expectations for family finances over the next 12 months fell 8.5 per cent to 85.1. A buyer's ability to service a loan depends on exactly those budgets, which is why a softer outlook for family finances tends to show up later in loan applications and at open homes.

## Real estate falls out of favour as a place for savings

Once a quarter the survey asks where the wisest place for savings is. The June answers show how far attitudes to housing as an investment have shifted. According to the release, 31 per cent of consumers nominated bank deposits, 27 per cent said paying down debt and 8 per cent chose superannuation. Together those three options were picked by two-thirds of respondents, up from 55 per cent in March.

Only 4.5 per cent nominated real estate. In March the share was 9.2 per cent, which Westpac already described as very low. The bank says the June figure is the lowest since the survey began in 1974, and compares with an average of 24 per cent over that time.

<div class="callout"><span class="mono">Reading the number</span><h4>The savings question is about investment, not about buying a home to live in</h4>
<p>A household can believe real estate is a poor place for spare savings and still want to own the home it lives in. The 4.5 per cent figure says most about the appetite of investors, who compete with owner-occupiers for the same Queensland listings.</p>
</div>

Westpac ties the change to the Budget's tax measures for investor housing, without detailing them in the release. For an owner-occupier looking at a house in Logan or a unit on the Sunshine Coast, the practical meaning is indirect: if fewer investors are looking, there may be fewer rival offers on the kinds of homes investors usually favour. The survey itself does not measure that, and it gives no state breakdown for the savings question.

## What the survey can and cannot tell a buyer

Three limits are worth keeping in mind. First, the state figures come from a national sample of 1,200 people, so each state reading rests on a few hundred responses or fewer and moves around more from month to month than the national index does. A 15 per cent monthly move in Queensland is large, but one month does not make a trend.

Second, the survey records opinion. Expectations of rising prices do not make prices rise, and a low time-to-buy reading has, in past cycles, sat alongside both falling and rising markets. The measures are most useful read together and against their long-run averages: 119 for time to buy, 130 for price expectations.

Third, the survey is national in design. It does not separate Brisbane from regional Queensland, houses from units, or first-time buyers from people trading up. A buyer comparing two suburbs will learn more from local sales evidence than from a statewide sentiment figure.

Within those limits, the June reading gives Queensland a clear position. Households here remain more confident about prices than those in New South Wales and Victoria, they are less confident than they were in May, and most still do not regard this as a good time to buy.

## What comes next

The next fixed date is the Reserve Bank Board meeting on 15 and 16 June. A pause, as Westpac expects, would leave the cash rate where three consecutive increases have put it. The July edition of the sentiment survey will then show whether June's fall in price expectations was a one-month reaction to the Budget and the rate rises, or the start of a longer adjustment.

For Queensland the figure to watch is the state's price expectations index against the long-run average of 130. New South Wales and Victoria have already dropped below it. Queensland, at 141, has not.