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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Regional Queensland and Brisbane now share the same median advertised rent: $700 a week. That is the finding of the September 2026 quarter Rental Report from a national property portal, prepared by its research arm PropTrack, part of REA Group, and reported by Elite Agent and Australian Broker on 9 October 2026.
The report has Brisbane rents up 7.7% in a year and regional Queensland up 6.1%. It landed two days after a rival portal's report described Brisbane rents as flat for the quarter. Both are describing the same three months. They are not measuring quite the same thing, and the gap between them says a lot about how to read any rent figure.
PropTrack Rental Report, September 2026 quarter, as reported by Elite Agent on 9 October 2026. Advertised rents on one national portal.
What the September quarter report found
The headline national figure is a record. PropTrack puts the national median advertised rent at $675 a week, up 1.5% over the quarter and 5.5% over the year. Australian Broker reports that this works out at about $1,820 more a year than in September 2025. Quarterly growth slowed from 2.3% in the June quarter.
The report's main theme is a split between cities and regions. The combined capitals reached $700 a week, up 1.4% in the quarter and 7.7% in the year. The combined regional markets held at $600, unchanged over the quarter and up 3.4% over the year. Megan Lieu, the portal's senior economic analyst and the report's author, summed it up in Elite Agent: "Annual growth in regional rents is softening, while the reverse is happening in capital cities."
Vacancy moved the other way. The national rate rose to 1.5% in September from 1.3% in June, the highest reading since February 2022. The regional rate was 1.4%. Over the year, the share of rentals available improved by 0.4 of a percentage point in regional areas and 0.2 of a point in the capitals, and Ms Lieu said that difference may be influencing prices.
Related readRental bonds in Queensland: lodging, the maximum and getting it backFor Brisbane, the report gives a median of $700, annual growth of 7.7% and a vacancy rate of 1.1%. Unit rents rose 7.2% in the year and house rents 6.7%. Within the city, the eastern suburbs recorded annual growth of 10.4%, the first capital city sub-region Elite Agent singles out from the report.
How regional Queensland compares
Regional Queensland is the outlier in the regional story. Its $700 median sits $100 a week above the $600 combined regional figure. The coverage names one other regional market at the same level: regional Western Australia, also at $700, where rents rose 7.7% in the year.
The chart below places the two Queensland markets among the other medians published from the report.
PropTrack Rental Report, September 2026 quarter, as reported by Elite Agent and Australian Broker on 9 October 2026.
A renter outside Brisbane is therefore being asked, at the median, the same money as a renter in the capital, and $100 a week more than the typical regional renter elsewhere in Australia. Over 52 weeks that $100 is $5,200.
The label "regional Queensland" needs care. Reports of this kind usually split each state into its capital and the rest. On that reading the label takes in the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, two of the dearest rental markets in the state, alongside Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba, Mackay, Rockhampton and the inland towns. The press coverage of the report does not give separate figures for those places, so the $700 should be read as a blend, not as the rent in any one town.
Two reports, one quarter, different answers
On 7 and 8 October, Time Out, the ABC and Property Update reported the other major portal's September quarter rent report. It found Brisbane house rents unchanged over the quarter at $700 a week and unit rents unchanged at $660. Its Brisbane vacancy rate was 0.7%.
Related readRTA backs a campaign on home modifications in rental propertiesSet side by side, the two reports agree on less than the shared $700 suggests.
| Measure | PropTrack | Rival portal |
|---|---|---|
| Headline median | $700, all dwellings | $700 houses, $660 units |
| House rents, annual change | 6.7% | 6.1% |
| Unit rents, annual change | 7.2% | 3.1% |
| Vacancy rate | 1.1% | 0.7% |
PropTrack figures as reported by Elite Agent on 9 October 2026. The rival portal's figures as published by Property Update on 8 October 2026.
Three things explain most of the gap.
Different listings. Each company measures the rentals advertised on its own portal. A property manager who lists on one and not the other is counted once. The mix of suburbs and property types differs between the two.
Different baskets. PropTrack's headline is a single median across houses and units together. The rival report publishes a house median and a unit median and no combined figure. A combined median can rise simply because more houses, or more expensive suburbs, were advertised that quarter.
Different clocks. PropTrack's growth figures in the coverage are annual. The rival's "flat" is a quarterly reading. Brisbane house rents can be unchanged since June and still 6.1% higher than a year ago, which is exactly what its own table shows.
The largest disagreement is on units: 7.2% against 3.1%. The published coverage does not explain it, and neither report should be treated as the last word on Brisbane apartments until another source comes in.
Why the vacancy rates do not match either
A vacancy rate looks like a simple count. It is an estimate, and each provider builds it its own way.
The rival portal's published method defines a vacant rental as one that has been advertised for more than 21 days, divided by an estimate of total rental stock drawn from census data. A home that leases in a fortnight never counts as vacant at all. The coverage of the PropTrack report does not set out its definition, so the 1.1% and the 0.7% cannot be reconciled line by line.
Related readRTA's 2026-27 compliance plan begins with bond claim evidenceQueensland has a third measure. The REIQ publishes its own Residential Vacancy Rate Report each quarter, covering 50 regions of the state. Its most recent edition, for the June 2026 quarter, was released on 30 July. It put Queensland at 1.0%, Greater Brisbane at 0.8%, the Gold Coast at 1.5% and the Sunshine Coast at 0.9%. Among the regional centres, Toowoomba was at 0.6%, Cairns at 0.8%, Townsville at 0.9%, Rockhampton at 1.0%, Mackay at 1.2% and the Fraser Coast at 2.2%.
The REIQ classes any market from 0 to 2.5% as tight, 2.6% to 3.5% as healthy and 3.6% or more as weak. On that scale every Brisbane figure in circulation this month is tight: 0.7%, 0.8% and 1.1% describe the same condition with different rulers.
The REIQ report also pointed in the same direction as PropTrack's national finding. Vacancies rose in 27 of the 50 Queensland regions it tracks in the June quarter, fell in 13 and held in 10. In the December 2025 quarter the Gold Coast had been at 1.1% and Greater Brisbane at 1.0%. Availability has been improving at the edges while staying far below the healthy band.
An advertised rent is an asking price, not a rent paid
Both portal reports measure what was asked for homes listed in the quarter. They say nothing about the rent of a tenancy already running. The Residential Tenancies Authority publishes a separate series based on new bonds lodged, which records rents agreed, and it recommends comparing year on year.
What tenants can take from it
A median advertised rent moves with the homes that happen to be listed. It is a guide to the cost of moving, not a forecast of the next renewal.
Queensland law limits how quickly an existing rent can follow the market. The Residential Tenancies Authority states that since 6 June 2024 rent can be increased only once every 12 months, and that the limit attaches to the property, not to the tenancy. A tenant can ask for written evidence of the date of the last increase, and the owner or manager has 14 days to provide it. All forms of rent bidding are banned.
Related readRTA publishes plain-language guides for residential servicesFor a tenant weighing a move from Brisbane to a regional centre to save money, the report carries a caution. At the median, the regional figure is no longer lower. Individual towns will sit well below and well above $700, which is why the authority's bond data, searchable by postcode and dwelling type, is the more useful check for a specific area.
What owners and property managers will watch
For owners, the report describes two different markets inside one state. Brisbane has a 1.1% vacancy rate and annual growth of 7.7%, with units ahead of houses. Regional Queensland has slower growth at 6.1%, in a national regional market where rents did not move at all over the quarter.
Property managers in the regions were already reporting a change of tone. In its July release the REIQ's chief executive, Antonia Mercorella, said agencies were seeing more break leases and more tenants moving to cheaper homes, and that many owners were feeling the squeeze as well. A flat quarter for regional rents nationally fits that picture.
The practical point for anyone pricing a rental is the one the two reports make together. A suburb median from one portal is a starting point. Days on market, the number of enquiries and the rents of comparable homes leased in the past few weeks say more about a single property than a state-wide median can.
The next figures due
Two Queensland sources have yet to report on the same quarter. The Residential Tenancies Authority says its median rents for July to September are published in October, drawn from bonds lodged across the state by postcode, suburb and council area. Because it counts agreed rents on new tenancies, it will show whether asking prices of $700 are being met.
The REIQ's vacancy report for the September quarter will follow its June edition. It is the only one of these series that breaks Queensland into 50 regions, and it will show whether the easing recorded in 27 of them carried through the winter.
Until then, the PropTrack report stands as one well-defined reading: on one portal, in one quarter, the typical asking rent outside Brisbane equalled the typical asking rent inside it.
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.
