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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Did Brisbane home prices rise or fall in June? The two monthly indexes most often quoted in Queensland give opposite answers. Cotality's Home Value Index, published on 1 July 2026, has Brisbane dwelling values up 0.3 per cent. The PropTrack Home Price Index, released the same day, has Brisbane prices down 0.2 per cent, a split that Australian Property Investor magazine set out in its Brisbane report of 6 July.
A minus sign next to Brisbane has been rare in either index over the past year, which is why the disagreement deserves a closer look.
The two readings side by side
| Measure | Cotality | PropTrack |
|---|---|---|
| All dwellings, month | +0.3% | -0.2% |
| Houses, month | +0.2% | -0.2% |
| Units, month | +0.6% | -0.1% |
| All dwellings, year | +17.4% | +13.9% |
| Median, all dwellings | $1,118,306 | $1,073,000 |
| Regional Queensland, month | +0.4% | -0.1% |
| Australia, month | -0.4% | -0.3% |
Sources: Cotality Home Value Index, published 1 July 2026; PropTrack Home Price Index for June 2026, released 1 July 2026, with Brisbane house and unit figures as reported by Australian Property Investor magazine on 6 July 2026.
On the monthly figure for all dwellings, the two are half a percentage point apart. On the annual figure the distance is 3.5 percentage points: Cotality has Brisbane 17.4 per cent higher than a year ago, PropTrack 13.9 per cent. Their medians differ by $45,306, with Cotality's the higher.
They also disagree on whether Brisbane has peaked. Cotality still lists the city at a record high. PropTrack's tables, as Elite Agent published them on 1 July, put Brisbane 0.4 per cent below its peak. The same pattern holds outside the capital: Cotality has regional Queensland up 0.4 per cent in June and at a record, while PropTrack has it down 0.1 per cent and says Queensland is the only state whose regional areas are not at a record high.
Nationally the two agree closely. PropTrack recorded a fall of 0.3 per cent in June, its third in a row, and Cotality a fall of 0.4 per cent. PropTrack's release shows prices lower in seven of the eight capitals, with Darwin the exception.
Related readBrisbane homes for sale jump 18 per cent in a single winter monthBrisbane is not the only city where they differ
Half a percentage point looks large when it straddles zero. Set beside the other capitals, it is an ordinary gap for a single month.
| City | Cotality | PropTrack | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perth | +0.7% | -0.5% | 1.2 points |
| Darwin | +1.4% | +0.2% | 1.2 points |
| Hobart | +0.6% | -0.2% | 0.8 points |
| Sydney | -1.2% | -0.5% | 0.7 points |
| Melbourne | -1.0% | -0.4% | 0.6 points |
| Adelaide | 0.0% | -0.2% | 0.2 points |
| Canberra | -0.6% | -0.4% | 0.2 points |
Sources: Cotality Home Value Index and PropTrack Home Price Index for June 2026, both published 1 July 2026. Gap is the difference between the two monthly changes.
Perth shows the same reversal of sign as Brisbane, on a larger scale: up 0.7 per cent on one index and down 0.5 per cent on the other. Hobart also has a plus from Cotality and a minus from PropTrack.
The table shows a pattern more than a contradiction. In June, Cotality's figures were more spread out than PropTrack's. It recorded larger falls in Sydney and Melbourne and larger rises in Perth, Darwin, Hobart and Brisbane. PropTrack's numbers sit closer together, between a fall of 0.5 per cent and a rise of 0.2 per cent for every capital. Where the market is near a turning point, as in Brisbane, that difference in spread is enough to put the two on opposite sides of zero.
Why two indexes can differ
Neither index is a simple average of the month's sale prices. Both use what statisticians call a hedonic method: a model estimates how much of each sale price is explained by the home's location and features, so that the index tracks the value of comparable homes instead of the mix that happened to sell.
The models are not the same. PropTrack's published methodology describes an adjacent period hedonic imputation, and its table of variables lists 19 of them, from bedrooms, bathrooms and land area to roof type, swimming pools and solar panels. Its main source is the sales records of the state and territory valuers-general, which the methodology says typically arrive about twelve weeks after contracts are signed. To be timely, it adds sales advised by agents through realestate.com.au. It treats houses as dwellings on Torrens title and units as those on strata or other titles.
Related readBrisbane homes now take 28 days to sell, and units are outpacing housesPropTrack says the index is calculated daily and reported monthly, for areas from the nation down to individual suburbs, and that it combines the results with a Fisher index, a standard formula that allows for changes in the make-up of the housing stock.
Cotality's methodology describes an imputation approach as well. It estimates a value for homes across the whole housing stock from recent sales of similar ones, using attributes such as bedrooms, bathrooms, land area and location.
The two also publish different medians, which is why their dollar figures for Brisbane are $45,306 apart. Each company calculates its median in its own way from its own data, so a level from one cannot be set against a change from the other.
Different inputs and different models give different answers, most of all in a single month and when the market is turning. The most recent weeks are where the data is thinnest, because many sales from late in the month have not yet been recorded by either company.
Both numbers will be revised
Revisions are built into both indexes, and they follow the same path.
- First estimatePublished at the start of the next month, from the sales known so far.
- Following monthsOfficial sales records arrive, about twelve weeks after contracts on PropTrack's description, and the month is re-estimated.
- Settled figureCotality revises each month for twelve months. PropTrack recalculates the latest three years every month.
June gave a clear example of how much a first estimate can move. With its 1 July release, Cotality revised its own May figure for Brisbane 53 basis points lower, a change slightly larger than the gap between the two indexes for June. Its May figure for Perth moved by 88 basis points. Cotality's comment was that the downward revision reflects a market that is changing rapidly.
The same revision brought the two indexes together for May. PropTrack's 1 June release described Brisbane as recording a modest rise in May, its slowest in more than three years, and Real Estate Business reported the figure as 0.1 per cent. Cotality's first estimate was 0.9 per cent, a gap of 0.8 points. After the 53 basis point revision, Cotality's May reading is about 0.4 per cent and the gap is about 0.3 points.
Related readBrisbane house buyers need $17,000 more income than in JanuaryIf June follows the same course, Cotality's 0.3 per cent would be revised towards PropTrack's figure. That is a possibility the May experience raises, not something either company has said, and PropTrack's own June number is open to revision in either direction.
What the two agree on
The direction of travel is not in dispute. On Cotality's figures, Brisbane's monthly growth has dropped from an average of 1.9 per cent through the March quarter to 0.3 per cent in June. On PropTrack's, it has gone from a small rise in May to a small fall in June. Either way, the pace has come down by a wide margin since the start of the year.
Both also still show Brisbane well ahead of a year ago, and both show units holding up slightly better than houses in June. PropTrack reports the same nationally, with unit prices flat over the month and house prices down 0.4 per cent.
They agree on the timing of the national turn as well. PropTrack puts national prices 0.9 per cent below a peak reached in March, with a national median of $903,000 that is still 5.8 per cent higher than a year ago. Cotality has the combined capitals 1.3 per cent below a peak in the same month, and its national index 7.3 per cent higher over the year. Brisbane is the place where the two series have not yet settled on a turning point: one has it 0.4 per cent past its peak, the other still at it.
Other indicators support the reading of a market close to flat with more stock to choose from. Australian Property Investor magazine reported on 6 July that advertised listings across Brisbane were 13.6 per cent higher than a year earlier, while the rental vacancy rate stayed tight at 0.9 per cent, against 1.6 per cent nationally.
A reader comparing the two should avoid treating the sign in front of a small monthly number as a verdict. A rise of 0.3 per cent and a fall of 0.2 per cent both describe a market that was close to flat in June. The clearer signal will come from the direction the two indexes take over the next few months, and from whether their revisions bring the June readings together, as happened with May. Both publish their July figures at the start of August, shortly before the Reserve Bank's Board meets on 10 and 11 August.
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.
