In this article
Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Home values on the Sunshine Coast have slipped 1.3 per cent from their April peak to a median of $1.213 million, according to REA Group figures to the end of August reported by Sunshine Coast News on 2 September 2026. After five years in which the region's values rose 49 per cent, against 28 per cent nationally, the report presents it as the first crack in the region's long boom.
The fall is modest. A decline of 1.3 per cent to $1.213 million implies a peak of about $1.229 million in April, so the median is roughly $16,000 lower over four months.
Two research houses, two medians
The Sunshine Coast News report sets REA Group's numbers beside those published by Cotality at the start of the month. They do not match, and the difference is worth seeing plainly.
| Home type | REA Group | Cotality |
|---|---|---|
| All dwellings | $1.213 million | $1.265 million |
| Houses | $1.34 million | $1.35 million |
| Units | $973,000 | $1.0 million |
REA Group and Cotality figures as reported by Sunshine Coast News, 2 September 2026. The two firms use different models and data, so their medians are not expected to agree.
On the all-dwellings line the two estimates are $52,000 apart. For houses the gap is $10,000 and for units $27,000. Neither figure is wrong. Each firm estimates the value of homes in the region from its own records and its own statistical model.
What matters for anyone following the market is to stay with one source when comparing over time. A reader who sets Cotality's median for one month against REA Group's for the next would see a fall of $52,000 that never happened.
Both firms agree on one feature of the coast that sets it apart: units are valued unusually close to houses. On REA Group's figures the median unit is worth about 73 per cent of the median house, and on Cotality's about 74 per cent. A unit market priced near $1 million reflects beachside apartments more than entry-level stock.
Related readBrisbane home values slip 0.6 per cent in July as the slowdown arrivesOn either measure the Sunshine Coast remains dearer than the state capital. Cotality's August index, published on 1 September, puts the median Brisbane dwelling at $1,080,142, which is about $185,000 below its Sunshine Coast figure, and the median across Australia's combined regional markets at $764,020. The same index recorded a fall of 0.4 per cent in combined regional values in August, against 1.0 per cent in Brisbane.
A longer view from sales data
The report also carries a third series, the median house price calculated from sales by the real estate group Ray White. It is a median of sold prices, not a model of all homes, so it moves more sharply.
Ray White median house prices as reported by Sunshine Coast News, 2 September 2026. The months shown are the turning points the report gives, not an even series.
Two things stand out. The first is the scale of the rise. The series climbed about 63 per cent in the first leg, to April 2022, and by February 2026 it stood at slightly more than double its level of December 2019. The second is that the region has been through a fall of this size before. The drop over the last eight months of 2022 was about 7.1 per cent, and the series went on to gain about 37 per cent over the following three years or so. The fall since February 2026 is about 6.1 per cent.
That is a description of the past and no guide to what follows this time. The earlier episode is nonetheless well documented. Local radio station 91.1 Hot FM reported on 1 August 2022, citing the index then published under the CoreLogic name, that Sunshine Coast values had fallen 1.4 per cent in July of that year and stood 2.5 per cent below their May peak, after a rise of 51 per cent in two years. Interest rates were rising then too.
Related readBrisbane homes for sale jump 18 per cent in a single winter monthA sold-price median falls faster than a value index
A median of sale prices reflects which homes happened to sell. When buyers of expensive homes step back, fewer high prices enter the sample and the median drops, even if the value of a given home has changed less.
How the year began
The turn stands out against where the region was at the start of 2026. In its outlook published on 1 January, Sunshine Coast News reported that the median house value had risen almost 10 per cent during 2025, a little ahead of a national figure of about 9 per cent and behind regional Queensland's 12.5 per cent or so. Ray White's economists were quoted in that article expecting growth of between 5 and 12 per cent for the year ahead.
The first months of the year went that way. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland's report for the March quarter, published on 28 May, put the median house price in the Sunshine Coast council area at $1.29 million, up 3.2 per cent on the quarter. The median unit price was $880,000, up 0.57 per cent, the smallest unit gain among the large south-east markets the institute listed. In neighbouring Noosa the house median was $1.68 million, up 8.39 per cent.
The same report already showed the coast's dearest market selling slowly. Houses in Noosa took a median of 45.5 days to sell and units 51.5 days, against statewide figures of 21 days for houses and 18 for units. The institute counted 1,317 house sales and 497 unit sales on the Sunshine Coast in the quarter, which made it the fourth-busiest house market in the state and the third-busiest for units.
The institute's June quarter report, published on 31 August, described a state that had since paused. The statewide median house price slipped 0.91 per cent to $983,000 and the unit median 1.22 per cent to $810,000, and five of the sixteen major house markets it tracks recorded a fall. REA Group's April peak for the Sunshine Coast sits inside that quarter.
Related readBrisbane homes now take 28 days to sell, and units are outpacing housesWhy the coast, and why now
The analysts quoted by Sunshine Coast News give overlapping explanations. Cotality's research team points first to worsening affordability, which shut out a growing share of would-be buyers, and then to a slowdown in population growth, alongside high interest rates and low consumer sentiment.
Ray White's economists list the interest rate rises of 2026, which reversed the cuts of 2025, the disruption to oil shipping since March, and the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax announced in the May federal budget. They add that expensive areas, and those with many investors, have felt these pressures more than cheaper ones.
Ray White describes the downturn as moving through three phases. The first, which it says the market is in now, is marked by uncertainty about rates and the budget, and by low activity more than by distressed selling. The second begins when a further rate rise looks very unlikely, since buyers need confidence about the peak more than they need a cut. The third starts when the Reserve Bank begins to reduce rates.
There is a cost side as well. The Sunshine Coast News report puts building costs 51 per cent above their level at the end of 2019, after a further rise of 5.9 per cent over the past year. Expensive construction limits how many new homes are started, and REA Group's analysts note that a shortage of new housing may offset some of the downward pressure on prices.
What the analysts expect
REA Group's analysts, the report says, expect prices to fall further, particularly if there is another interest rate rise. Cotality's research team expects the downturn to persist at least through the rest of the year. Those are forecasts by the institutions named, and each is conditional.
The condition both mention is the cash rate. The Reserve Bank raised it three times in the first half of 2026 and held it at 4.35 per cent at its August meeting. Its published calendar sets the next Monetary Policy Board meeting for 28 and 29 September, and Ray White's second phase cannot begin before the direction of rates is clearer.
The wider setting is a national one. Cotality's August index recorded a fall of 0.9 per cent in national dwelling values during the month, with Brisbane down 1.0 per cent and still 10.8 per cent higher than a year earlier. The Sunshine Coast is moving with the rest of south-east Queensland, not against it.
It is dearer than Brisbane on these figures, and a region that gained 49 per cent in five years has more ground to give than most. So far it has given very little of it. A fall of 1.3 per cent on REA Group's measure leaves almost all of the five-year gain in place, and leaves local sellers and their agents working in a market that is slower than last summer's but far from distressed.
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.
