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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The typical home sold in Australia in July changed hands for 4 per cent less than its asking price, the widest vendor discount since May 2023, according to the monthly economic and property update that valuation firm Herron Todd White published on 31 August 2026. Brisbane is one of four markets the update names as having seen the largest increase in discounting over the past year.
Two days later, on 2 September, Smart Property Investment reported on the firm's August Month in Review, in which chief executive Peter Maloney told readers that "many properties simply will not sell." Valuers are not in the habit of dramatic language. They inspect homes for lenders every working day, and their reports are read by the banks that decide how much a buyer may borrow. When they write that sellers have lost ground, a Queensland owner planning a spring campaign has reason to read the detail.
Herron Todd White, August Economic and Property Market Update, published 31 August 2026. National figures.
What the valuers measured
The update, written by the firm's chief economist Cameron Kusher, brings together three measures that agents and sellers usually meet one at a time.
The first is the vendor discount: the gap between the price a home is advertised at and the price it finally sells for, expressed as a percentage. Herron Todd White puts it at 4 per cent for the typical sale in July 2026, against 3.3 per cent a year earlier. Only Hobart and regional Tasmania recorded a smaller discount than a year ago. The largest increases, the update says, were in regional Western Australia, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney.
Related readBrisbane keeps adding homes for sale in June as other capitals thin outThe second is time on market. The national median reached 44 days in July, up from 27 days in July 2025. Leaving aside January, when the holidays always stretch the figure, the update calls that the longest selling time since June 2020. It lists Brisbane and regional Queensland, along with Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, as the markets with the biggest increases.
| Market | July 2025 | July 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 27 days | 44 days | 17 days longer |
| Capital cities | 24 days | 42 days | 18 days longer |
| Regional markets | 33 days | 47 days | 14 days longer |
Source: Herron Todd White, August Economic and Property Market Update, 31 August 2026. Changes computed from the two columns.
The third is the number of sales. Over the three months to July, the update counts 15.6 per cent fewer sales nationally than in the same months of 2025. Brisbane sits in the group where the fall was steeper than 20 per cent, with Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and regional Western Australia. Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, Canberra, regional New South Wales and regional South Australia sold more homes than a year before.
Mr Kusher's summary of the three together is short: "sellers are finding it much harder to secure a buyer."
Brisbane among the markets that moved most
What stands out for Queensland is how often its capital appears in the lists. Brisbane is named for the increase in discounting, for the increase in selling time and for the fall in sales. Regional Queensland is named for selling time.
That is a change of company. For most of the past five years Brisbane was grouped with Perth and Adelaide as a market where homes sold in days and vendors conceded little. The update does not publish a separate Brisbane percentage for the discount, so the national 4 per cent should not be read as the city's own figure. What it does say is that the direction of travel in Brisbane has been sharper than in most places.
Related readJune quarter resales: Brisbane's median gain stalls at $525,000Figures published elsewhere this week fill in part of the local picture. Writing in API Magazine on 4 September, buyer's agent Melinda Jennison cites Cotality data putting Brisbane's median time on market at 28 days, against 19 days a year earlier, and sales volumes more than 20 per cent below last year's. The same article puts Brisbane dwelling values 1.0 per cent lower in August and 2.7 per cent below their May peak, while still 10.8 per cent higher than a year ago.
Smart Property Investment's report on the Month in Review adds one further Queensland detail. It says a prestige index in the review fell to 53 from 58, its largest single-month fall, and that Brisbane and the Gold Coast recorded the largest movements.
Why 44 days and 28 days are both right
A reader comparing the two sets of numbers will notice that the national median of 44 days is far longer than Brisbane's 28. Both can be true, for two reasons.
One is geography. A national median blends fast and slow markets, and Brisbane, even after slowing, remains quicker than the country as a whole. A city can be among those that have slowed the most and still be faster than average, because it started from a much shorter time. On the API Magazine figures, Brisbane's selling time has grown by nine days in a year. The national figure in the valuers' update has grown by 17.
The other is method. Providers differ in whether they measure a single month or a rolling three months, and in which sales they count. A seller should treat any days-on-market figure as a reading from one instrument and compare it only with earlier readings from the same one.
Related readBrisbane owners hold back new listings as spring approachesWhat a wider discount costs
The difference between 3.3 per cent and 4 per cent sounds small. A worked example shows its size. Take a home advertised at $1,000,000, an illustrative figure and not a market median. At last year's typical discount of 3.3 per cent it would sell $33,000 below the advertised price, for $967,000. At this year's 4 per cent the gap is $40,000 and the price $960,000. The extra concession is $7,000.
Two cautions apply. A median discount is the middle of a range: some homes sell at or above their advertised price, and others concede far more than 4 per cent. And the figure counts only homes that sold. A property that sits unsold, or is withdrawn, does not appear in it at all. That is the point of Mr Maloney's remark. When he writes that many properties will not sell, he is describing the homes the discount figure cannot see.
A vendor discount measures only the homes that found a buyer
The discount compares an advertised price with a sale price, so it exists only where a sale happened. Homes that were withdrawn or are still waiting are left out, which means the figure understates how far apart some sellers and buyers are.
More stock, fewer sales
The update's listings count explains why the balance has shifted. It records 72,806 newly listed properties nationally in July, 5.1 per cent more than in June and 15.9 per cent more than in July 2025. Total listings reached 278,984, up 12.4 per cent in a month and 22.8 per cent in a year, which the update describes as the largest annual increase in more than a year. Only Sydney and Hobart had fewer new listings than a year earlier, and every other capital except Perth and Canberra recorded double-digit growth.
The Brisbane count has kept edging up since. SQM Research's listings release for August, published on 1 September, puts the city's total at 20,374 homes, 0.5 per cent more than in July. Inside that small rise the mix changed: new listings fell 7.6 per cent in the month, while listings older than 180 days rose 13.8 per cent. Asking prices in Brisbane fell 1.7 per cent. Fewer owners joined the market in August, and more of those already in it were still waiting.
Related readNearly every Brisbane resale made a profit in the March quarterSQM's managing director, Louis Christopher, said in the release that "the spring market will provide an important test of vendor expectations and buyer demand." Mr Maloney, in the passage quoted by Smart Property Investment, makes the same observation from the valuer's side: "Listings are climbing into spring against subdued demand."
What it changes in a spring campaign
None of these sources tells an owner what to do, and none could: a campaign depends on the home, the street and the seller's own circumstances. What the figures do is describe the conditions under which decisions are now made.
The first is time. A campaign planned around last year's pace will run short. On the valuers' national figures, the median sale takes more than six weeks, and half take longer. Appointments to sell, marketing schedules and the timing of a purchase elsewhere are all built on an assumption about how long a sale takes.
The second is the asking price. A widening discount is what happens when advertised prices are set with reference to an earlier, stronger market and buyers negotiate with reference to the present one. In Queensland an agent who suggests a price must support it with comparable sales from the previous six months, under the Office of Fair Trading's rules, and in a market that has turned since May the most recent of those sales carry the most information.
The third is the valuer. Most buyers borrow, and a lender's valuation is a step between an accepted offer and an unconditional contract. The firms writing these reports are the ones carrying out those valuations, and they are telling lenders, in plain terms, that demand is subdued.
What comes next
Herron Todd White publishes its economic update and its Month in Review each month, so the figures for August will follow at the end of September. Cotality's monthly chart pack, published on 16 July and 14 August in the past two months, is the next source due to report selling times and discounts city by city, Brisbane included.
SQM Research's count for September, due in the first days of October, will show whether Brisbane's older listings kept accumulating through the first month of spring. The Reserve Bank, which held the cash rate at 4.35 per cent in August, has further meetings before the end of the year, and the sources quoted here all treat borrowing costs as the main weight on demand.
For now the valuers' message to sellers is narrower than the headline suggests. Homes are still selling in Queensland. They are taking longer, conceding more, and a share of them are not selling at the price first asked.
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.
