South-east Queensland sellers adjust as homes take longer to sell

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Kooky

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Buyers are back in the stronger position in south-east Queensland as the property market slows, ABC News reported on 15 July 2026. Drawing on Cotality data and interviews with the Real Estate Institute of Queensland and local agents, the report describes a market that has paused: prices are not falling across the board, but homes are taking longer to sell and vendors' expectations are being tested.

The numbers in the report are about activity more than price, and they explain why the monthly indexes have gone quiet. Cotality's Home Value Index, published on 1 July, had Brisbane up only 0.3 per cent in June.

More homes on the market, not more sellers

The most telling figures concern listings. According to the Cotality data quoted by the ABC, the number of Brisbane properties listed for sale over the latest four weeks was almost 25 per cent higher than in the same period a year earlier. Yet new listings over those four weeks, at 3,696, were only 0.8 per cent higher than a year ago.

That distinction matters for prices. A surge of new sellers would suggest owners rushing for the exit. A build-up of unsold stock suggests something milder: buyers taking their time, and a gap between the price sellers hope for and the price buyers will pay. The ABC report uses the word "disconnect" for that gap, and Cotality's researchers, quoted in it, describe the market as being in a holding pattern.

The change has come quickly. API Magazine's summary of Cotality's June figures, published on 6 July, had Brisbane's advertised listings 13.6 per cent higher than a year earlier and new listings 11 per cent higher. Within a few weeks the first figure has almost doubled and the second has shrunk to almost nothing. Fewer owners are starting campaigns, and the homes already advertised are staying there.

Agents see it at inspections. The same API Magazine article reports that well-presented Brisbane homes which commonly drew 30 to 40 groups to an open home three months earlier were in some cases drawing one or two.

Auctions show the same hesitation

Auction results point the same way. Cotality's figures, as quoted by the ABC, put Brisbane's auction clearance rate at 43 per cent in the latest week. That was a recovery from 23.5 per cent the week before, but well short of the roughly 63 per cent recorded at the same time last year.

The 23.5 per cent figure is worth a second look, because it was a low point for the whole region. Cotality's final results for the week ending 5 July, published on 9 July, cover the two coasts as well as the capital.

Cotality called the Brisbane result the city's weakest reading since late April 2020. It also added a caution that applies to every figure in this section: auctions make up a small share of Brisbane's sales, so one week's rate says more about a particular group of campaigns than about the market as a whole. Across the combined capitals the final rate that week was 46.0 per cent, against 45.0 per cent the week before and 67.9 per cent a year earlier.

An auction that does not clear is not a failed sale. Many of those homes sell by negotiation in the days and weeks that follow. But a clearance rate under 50 per cent means that on the day, most vendors' reserves sat above the highest bid in the room, which is another way of measuring the same gap in expectations.

Some sellers are responding by avoiding the method. One Ipswich agency told the ABC that vendors were steering away from auctions for fear of a result that does not clear, and that it had lost almost half of its buyers since the Budget.

The coasts and the regions

The slowdown is not confined to Brisbane. The ABC reports that the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast have both slowed after their strong runs of the past few years, and the auction table above shows fewer than four in ten coastal auctions clearing in the first week of July.

Regional Queensland is holding up slightly better on the published index. Cotality's June figures show regional Queensland values up 1.5 per cent over the June quarter, 0.2 percentage points more than Brisbane's 1.3 per cent. Both have slowed: a month earlier, Cotality had Brisbane's growth over the three months to May at 3.4 per cent.

The Darling Downs remains the strongest regional area, with values up about 24 per cent over twelve months. Cotality's June tables put Darling Downs West and Maranoa at 24.0 per cent, the eastern Darling Downs at 23.9 per cent, the Central Highlands at 21.5 per cent and Toowoomba at 20.1 per cent, with a median value of $867,646 in Toowoomba.

The ABC's reporting from the regions adds texture to those averages. Toowoomba is described as more resilient than most because it is still relatively affordable, though it too is losing momentum. In Bundaberg, an agent told the ABC that homes are selling for prices similar to those at the start of the year but are taking much longer to find a buyer, and that the great majority of the agency's buyers are new to Queensland.

Why it is happening now

The report gives three reasons, and they are the same ones that lenders and data companies have cited since May. Interest rates have risen three times this year: the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate in February, March and May, to 4.35 per cent, and left it there in June. The federal Budget changed the rules on negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, which has made some investors cautious. And buyers who think prices might ease are in less of a hurry to commit.

On the Budget, the ABC's account is that negative gearing is to be limited to newly built homes for future investment purchases, and that the capital gains tax discount is to be reduced from July next year. Established homes are most of what is for sale in south-east Queensland, so a measure aimed at investors in established property touches a large share of the buyers who would normally be at inspections.

The third reason feeds on itself. When buyers expect prices to soften, they wait; when they wait, homes sit longer; and longer selling times are read as a sign of softening. That loop can run for a while without prices actually falling much.

A market can change hands from sellers to buyers without prices falling first. In south-east Queensland, the shift is showing up in time and in negotiation.

Cotality's national figures show how far demand has dropped. In its June release the firm estimated that capital city sales over the three months to June were 16.2 per cent lower than a year earlier and 14.5 per cent below the five-year average, while advertised stock was 11 per cent higher than a year before. The national index fell 0.4 per cent in June, which Cotality described as the largest monthly fall since December 2022.

What the industry says

The Real Estate Institute of Queensland, quoted by the ABC, does not read the pause as a collapse in demand. The institute's position is that demand for property in the state is still very strong and that new construction is nowhere near the level needed to meet it. It told the ABC the industry is waiting for the next set of quarterly figures, the first to cover a full period after the Budget, for a clearer view of the effect.

That caution is reasonable. The numbers available in mid-July are weekly and monthly, and they describe behaviour more than outcomes: how many homes are advertised, how many auctions clear, how many groups turn up on a Saturday. The slower measures have not yet caught up. On the ABC's figures, Brisbane values are about 75 per cent higher than five years ago.

For vendors, the practical consequence described in the ABC report is that pricing to last year's results is no longer working. For buyers, it is the return of things that had almost disappeared from the Queensland market: time to inspect twice, room to make an offer below the asking price, and less competition on the day.

What comes next

Three scheduled releases will test the picture. Cotality publishes its July Home Value Index at the start of August, the first monthly reading taken entirely after the June figures the ABC relied on. The Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Board meets on 10 and 11 August. And the quarterly median prices that the REIQ is waiting for, covering April to June, follow once the quarter's sales have been counted.

None of this amounts to a forecast. The published indexes still have Brisbane values 17.4 per cent higher than a year ago, on Cotality's June figures. What the ABC report captures is the mood on the ground in mid-July, after the fastest part of the rise has passed.

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.

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