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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Meeting the repayments on an average new home loan in Queensland took 54.4 per cent of the median family income in the June quarter, the second-highest share in the country. The figure comes from the Real Estate Institute of Australia's Housing Affordability Report, released on Wednesday 9 September, with the state breakdown reported by Australian Property Update on 10 September. Only New South Wales, at 57.7 per cent, asked more of its buyers.
The national result was 50.9 per cent, a deterioration of 0.1 percentage points over the quarter and 3.3 points over the year. The quarter is the interesting part. House prices and loan sizes both edged down between April and June, and affordability still did not improve, because the cost of borrowing rose at the same time.
What the REIA measures
The institute's report has one central number for buyers: the proportion of median family income required to meet average home loan repayments. It is calculated each quarter for every state and territory, using the average size of new loans and the interest rates of the period.
A higher percentage means worse affordability. At 50.9 per cent nationally, a family in the middle of the income range would hand over a little more than half of its gross income to service the average new loan. The report also publishes a matching figure for tenants, the share of median family income needed to pay the median rent.
Because the measure uses the average loan actually written, it reflects what buyers are borrowing, not what a home costs. If buyers respond to higher rates by borrowing less, by choosing a cheaper home or bringing a larger deposit, the measure captures that. It is a picture of the commitments people are taking on.
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Australian Property Update's report of the release lists New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia as the three least affordable jurisdictions for buyers.
REIA Housing Affordability Report, June quarter 2026, released 9 September 2026; state figures as reported by Australian Property Update, 10 September 2026.
Queensland sits 3.5 percentage points above the national figure and 3.3 points below New South Wales. The Australian Capital Territory, where incomes are high, is the most affordable jurisdiction on this measure by a wide margin.
The direction of travel matters as much as the rank. The REIA says affordability improved over the quarter in New South Wales and Victoria, held steady in Tasmania and declined in every other state and territory. Queensland is in that last group. Western Australia recorded the largest quarterly deterioration, 1.6 percentage points, to reach 47.5 per cent.
A share above one half is far from the yardstick usually applied to housing costs. REA Group's index, for example, treats a home as affordable when repayments take no more than 30 per cent of gross household income. On the REIA's measure, the average new Queensland loan asks for 24.4 percentage points more than that. The comparison has a limit: the people who took out those loans are not, on the whole, median-income families. Borrowers who qualify for an average-sized loan at current rates tend to earn more than the median, or to be two-income households. The measure shows how far the typical loan has moved out of reach of the typical family, which is a different thing from the strain felt by those who did borrow.
This is not a new position for Queensland. The institute's September quarter 2025 report, published in December, recorded a national figure of 47.0 per cent and noted that Queensland was the only state where home loan affordability declined that quarter, by 0.1 percentage points. The national measure has since worsened by 3.9 points in three quarters.
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The June quarter is a clear example of two forces pulling against each other. The components the REIA publishes show which one won.
| Component | June quarter 2026 | Quarterly change |
|---|---|---|
| Median house price | $1,135,560 | Down 1.2% |
| Average owner-occupier loan | $730,719 | Down 0.6% |
| Average monthly repayment | $6,018 | Up 1.5% |
| Share of income for repayments | 50.9% | Up 0.1 points |
REIA Housing Affordability Report, June quarter 2026, released 9 September 2026.
Prices fell and loans shrank, yet the monthly repayment rose. The explanation is the interest rate. The Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate by 25 basis points in May to 4.35 per cent, and the REIA's release puts the quarterly average of the standard variable rate at 8.8 per cent. A smaller loan at a higher rate cost more each month than a larger loan had cost a quarter earlier.
REIA president Jacob Caine put it this way in the release: softer property prices and smaller average loans gave some relief, but the benefit to home buyers was largely offset by the increase in borrowing costs.
Over a year the effect is larger. The average monthly repayment of $6,018 is 12.4 per cent higher than in the June quarter of 2025, far ahead of income growth, which is why the share of income rose 3.3 points over twelve months.
Dividing the repayment by the share gives a sense of the income the institute is working from. A repayment of $6,018 that equals 50.9 per cent of income implies a median family income of about $11,800 a month, or roughly $142,000 a year. That is a derived figure, not one stated in the release.
Two reports, two percentages
Queensland buyers have now seen two affordability reports in a week. REA Group's index for the 2025-26 financial year, published days earlier, put mortgage repayments in Queensland at 39.7 per cent of income. The REIA's figure is 54.4 per cent. Both describe the same state, and the two are not in conflict.
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The reports use different incomes, different loans and different interest rates. REA's coverage cites mortgage rates of 6.3%; the REIA cites a standard variable rate averaging 8.8%. Each series is best compared with its own earlier readings.
The practical point is that no single percentage is the "true" cost of buying. Each report fixes a set of assumptions and holds them steady so that changes over time mean something. Read that way, the two agree: both show Queensland near the bottom of the state rankings, and both show the burden heavier than a year ago.
Renting compared with buying
The report's rental measure moved differently. Nationally, 23.9 per cent of median family income was needed to pay the median rent in the June quarter, unchanged over both the quarter and the year. The REIA says rental affordability improved modestly in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory and declined in every other jurisdiction.
For a household deciding whether to keep renting or to buy, the gap between the two measures is the telling figure. At the national level, the average new loan takes 50.9 per cent of median family income and the median rent takes 23.9 per cent, a difference of 27 percentage points. The loan buys an asset and the rent does not, so the two are not equivalent, but the monthly cash required is of a different order.
In Queensland the gap is being pulled wider from both ends: loan affordability worsened over the quarter while rental affordability improved a little. The report's coverage does not give the state's rental percentage, so the size of the Queensland gap cannot be stated here.
First home buyers kept borrowing
Despite the cost, first home buyers were more active, not less. The REIA counts 30,129 new first home buyer loan commitments across the country in the June quarter, up 11.0 per cent on the March quarter and unchanged from a year earlier. They made up 36.3 per cent of all owner-occupier commitments.
Their average loan was $610,063, down 0.6 per cent over the quarter but 10.0 per cent higher than a year before. That is about $120,000 less than the $730,719 average for all owner-occupiers, a reminder that first-time purchasers are mostly buying below the middle of the market.
The release does not break the first home buyer numbers down by state. The schemes that support those buyers, including deposit guarantees and state grants, sit outside this report.
What moves the number from here
The measure has three moving parts, and a buyer can watch each of them without waiting for the next edition.
Interest rates are the fastest. Any change in the cash rate flows through to variable loan rates within weeks and to the REIA's measure in the following quarter. Loan sizes are the second: they follow prices with a lag, and they also fall when lenders approve smaller amounts. Incomes are the slowest, rising a few per cent a year.
In the June quarter the first part outweighed the second. Mr Caine's summary of the result was measured: the quarterly decline was only 0.1 percentage points, he noted, but the decline over the year was 3.3 points. The institute's next report will cover the September quarter. Last year's edition for that quarter was published in December.
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.
