What's Happening in the Australian Property Market This Spring?

Almost every capital city suburb is recording falling values. More homes are advertised for sale than in years. Yet fewer homes are selling than at almost any point in the past five years.

That combination is what makes the property market unusual right now. Prices are softening. Stock is piling up. Buyers have more time and more room to negotiate than they have had in a long while. None of it means the market has fallen over.

Here is what the numbers say heading into spring, what the forecasters expect, and what it means if you are thinking about buying.

Quick Answer: What's happening in the Australian property market right now? 

The market is in a broad but orderly downturn. Cotality's national Home Value Index fell 0.9% in August. That was the fifth monthly fall in a row, leaving home values nationally 3.6% below the market peak of March 2026. Sydney is at the sharp end, down 1.4% for the month. Perth and Adelaide are the mildest, both down 0.8%.

For buyers, the picture is better than the headlines suggest. There is more choice, homes are taking longer to sell, and there is real scope to negotiate. Osinski Finance has been broking home loans out of Rockingham since 2017. In our experience, a softer market rewards buyers who sort out their borrowing power first. It does not reward the ones trying to pick the bottom.

Home values are falling, but not evenly

Five straight months of falls is the headline. The home value index now sits 3.6% below its March peak.

That is a real move, but keep the scale in mind. A 3.6% fall undoes a few months of growth, not a decade of it.

The more useful part of the data is how uneven it is. The national figure is an average. Averages hide a lot when one capital is falling three times faster than another.

How each capital city is tracking

Here is the August picture across the capitals, from the most recent Cotality release.

Source: Cotality Home Value Index, August 2026.

The real story of this downturn is not its depth; it is its breadth. Over autumn, fewer than half of the capital city suburbs were recording falls. By the end of winter, 93% of capital city suburbs were in negative territory. That is a market where softness has spread almost everywhere, rather than one where a couple of expensive postcodes are dragging the average down.

What this means for the Western Australia housing market

Perth's 0.8% monthly fall puts it at the gentle end of the national table, alongside Adelaide, and well clear of what Sydney is going through. On its own, that reads like good news for local sellers and a slower-moving opportunity for local buyers.

The figure that matters more locally is the one underneath it. Perth is one of three capitals, along with Brisbane and Sydney, where sales volumes are down more than 20% from last year. So the Western Australia housing market is not seeing values collapse. It is seeing far fewer transactions, with buyers and sellers sitting further apart on price than they were twelve months ago.

What a Perth buyer should take from that

A market with mild price falls and sharply lower turnover is a market where negotiation matters more than timing. There is less competition on any given property, but there are also fewer properties changing hands, which means the homes that do come up are worth moving on properly rather than waiting for a better one next month. Across Rockingham, Baldivis and the wider southern corridor, we are seeing buyers with finance already arranged get taken far more seriously than those still working out what they can borrow.

Is it a buyer’s market in Australia right now?

Yes, on the measures that matter. Advertised stock across the capitals sits 24% higher than a year ago and 8% above the five-year average. That is quite a turnaround from last spring, when the supply of homes advertised for sale was sitting below average. Homes are taking longer to sell. Auction volumes opened spring 31% down from last year, while clearance rates held steady, which means less of the pressure-cooker bidding that made the last few years so difficult.

Put simply, a buyer's market is one where the person buying has time, options, and greater scope to negotiate on price. All three of those are available right now in a way they were not in 2024 or 2025.

The honest counterweight is that a buyer's market is not a free pass. Borrowing capacity has tightened as rates have moved, so the budget that got you across the line eighteen months ago may not stretch as far today. Fewer homes are transacting, so the good ones still go. And a property that has been sitting on the market for four months is sometimes sitting there for a reason that has nothing to do with the market.

Why are there more homes for sale when fewer people are listing?

This is the part almost everyone gets wrong, and it is worth understanding properly.

Total advertised stock levels are well up on last year. But the flow of new listings coming to market is actually 6% lower than it was twelve months ago. Both can be true at once, and that gap explains everything: stock isn’t building because sellers are rushing to get out. It is building because homes are taking longer to find a buyer, so each month's listings stack on top of the last lot, instead of clearing.

That distinction matters practically. A property that has been advertised for three or four months belongs to a seller whose expectations have almost certainly shifted since they listed. Those are the listings where a considered offer tends to land best.

What a buyer's market does & does not change

What it changes in your favour:

• More properties to compare, so you are choosing rather than settling
• Longer selling times, so there is room to inspect twice and think it over
• Genuine scope to negotiate on price and on terms such as settlement length
• Fewer competing bidders, with auction clearance rates  steady on far lower volumes

What it does not change:

• Lender assessment rates, which govern what you can actually borrow
• The need for a current, accurate borrowing position before you make an offer
• The quality of the individual property, which no market condition improves

House prices forecast for Australia: what the experts expect

No one knows where the floor is. What is useful is seeing how far apart the serious forecasters currently sit, because the spread tells you more than any single number.

Forecasts as reported in news.com.au's September 2026 coverage and Westpac's August 2026 market outlook. 

Under the more bearish views, AMP expects the downswing to run into the middle of next year before values turn. Westpac sits at the other end, expecting prices to stabilise as we head towards year's end, then firm slightly over the course of 2027.

That is a genuinely wide house prices forecast for Australia, and the honest reading is that these are scenarios rather than schedules. What sits underneath all of them is the same set of drivers: the direction of interest rates and their effect on what people can borrow, affordability limits that have kept a lot of buyers on the sidelines, and confidence. The Reserve Bank has been explicit that cooling the housing market is part of what rate settings are designed to do, so the rate path is the thing to watch rather than any one forecast.

Perspective is the useful part here. Every previous downturn in the Australian property market has eventually levelled out and been followed by a period of stability. Nobody can tell you the date, and anyone who says they can is guessing.

What a softer market means if you're buying this spring

Spring is still the biggest selling period of the year for real estate. Listings typically rise 15 to 20% compared with winter as sellers wait for gardens to look their best and daylight to stretch out.

In a normal year, that surge of stock brings a surge of competition with it. This year it is landing in a market that already has more homes advertised than it can clear, which deepens the buyer's market rather than reversing it. More choice, on top of choice that was already there.

Why a falling market can favour upgraders

This is the one that gets missed most often. If you are selling to buy something more expensive, a falling market can work in your favour, because a percentage fall is worth more in dollars on the bigger number.

[Developer note: pull out as a callout box]

An illustrative example. A 3% fall on a $1.5 million home you want to buy is $45,000. A 3% fall on the $800,000 home you are selling is $24,000. In that scenario, you are $21,000 better off across the two transactions, even though you sold into a softer market. (Figures are illustrative only and used to show how the arithmetic works.)

The condition attached is timing. This only holds if you buy and sell reasonably close together, because a long gap between the two exposes you to further movement in both directions. Cotality has also noted that higher-value housing is recording larger falls than lower-priced homes across most capitals, which sharpens the effect for anyone moving up the ladder.

Knowing your borrowing power before you start looking

Softer prices are only an opportunity if you are in a position to act on them. That comes down to knowing, accurately and currently, what a lender will actually approve.

Borrowing capacity is not set by property values. It is set by your income, your expenses, your existing debts, and the assessment rate the lender applies, and those assessment rates have moved as rates have moved. A borrowing figure worked out even six months ago may no longer reflect what is available today, and finding that out mid-negotiation is a rough way to learn it. 

Our pre-approval and home loan process is built to sort that out before you are standing at an open home, and first home buyers can check what they may be entitled to through the first home owner grant at the same time.

Worth having sorted before spring inspections start:

• A current borrowing capacity figure, not one from last year
• Pre-approval in place, with its expiry date noted in your calendar
• Your deposit position confirmed, including costs such as stamp duty
• A clear sense of your genuine upper limit, separate from what a lender will allow

More buyers are using a broker than ever before

Mortgage brokers facilitated a record 81.6% of all new residential home loans during the June 2026 quarter, according to the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia. That is the highest market share on record, and roughly four in every five new borrowers.

It makes particular sense in a market like this one. When lenders are assessing borrowers more conservatively, the gap between what one lender will approve and what another will approve widens considerably. Having someone compare across a panel of lenders rather than working with a single product set is worth more when that gap is wide than when every lender is saying much the same thing.

Conclusion

The market has genuinely shifted in favour of buyers this spring. More stock, more time, more room to negotiate and less auction pressure than at any point in recent years. What it has not done is hand anyone a shortcut, because acting on a softer market still takes preparation rather than good timing.

If you are weighing up a purchase over the next few months, the most useful thing you can do is get a clear, current picture of what you can borrow and what that means for your buying budget. Contact us today.

Key Takeaways

• National home values have fallen for five consecutive months and sit 3.6% below their March 2026 peak, with Cotality's index down 0.9% in August.
• The downturn has broadened rather than deepened. Around 93% of capital city suburbs recorded falls over winter, up from under half in autumn.
• Falls are uneven. Sydney is down 1.4% for the month and 7.1% below its February peak, while Perth and Adelaide are the mildest of the capitals at 0.8%.
• Advertised stock is 24% above last year, even though new listings are 6% lower, because homes are taking longer to sell rather than more sellers listing.
• Forecasts for the total fall range from around 7% (NAB) to more than 10% (AMP), which is a range rather than a consensus.
• Borrowing capacity is set by income, expenses, debts and lender assessment rates, not by property values, so a borrowing figure worked out months ago may no longer be accurate.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Australian Property Market

Are Australian house prices falling right now?

Yes. Cotality's national Home Value Index fell 0.9% in August 2026, the fifth consecutive monthly decline, leaving national values 3.6% below their March peak. Falls are not uniform, though. Sydney is down 1.4% for the month, while Perth and Adelaide are down 0.8%, so what is happening nationally may look quite different in your own market.

Is it a good time to buy property in Australia?

It depends far more on your own position than on the market's. Conditions currently favour buyers, with more stock, longer selling times and real scope to negotiate. Set against that, borrowing capacity has tightened. The buyers doing well in this market are the ones who know exactly what they can borrow before they start looking, rather than those trying to time the bottom.

How far will Australian house prices fall?

Forecasts currently span a wide range. NAB has pointed to around 7% peak to trough, CBA to around 9%, and AMP to more than 10%, while Westpac describes the cooling as an "air pocket" rather than a lasting downturn. These are scenarios based on different assumptions about rates and confidence, not predictions with a date attached.

Is Australia in a buyer's market?

On the measures that matter, yes. Advertised stock across the capitals sits 24% above last year and 8% above the five-year average; homes are taking longer to sell, and auction volumes opened spring 31% down on last year with clearance rates holding steady. Together, that gives buyers more choice, more time and more negotiating room.

Which Australian cities are holding up best?

Perth and Adelaide are the mildest of the capitals, both down 0.8% in August. Sydney is at the other end, down 1.4% for the month and 7.1% below its February peak, with Melbourne and Canberra down 1.1% and Brisbane down 1.0%. Regional markets have held up slightly better than the capitals overall.

Why are there more homes for sale but fewer selling?

Because the two numbers measure different things. Total advertised stock is up 24% from last year, but the flow of new listings is actually 6% lower. Homes are accumulating on the market because they are taking longer to sell, not because more sellers are listing. That is why buyers are seeing so much more choice.

Will the spring selling season change the market?

Spring usually lifts listings by 15 to 20% compared with winter, which in a normal year brings more competition. In a market already carrying more stock than it can clear, extra listings generally extend the buyer's advantage rather than reversing it. Expect more choice this spring, not less.

How does the Perth property market compare to the eastern states?

Perth is holding up better on price, down 0.8% in August against Sydney's 1.4%. Turnover tells a different story, with Perth among three capitals where sales volumes are down more than 20% year on year. So it is a market with milder value falls but considerably fewer transactions, which puts more weight on negotiation than on timing.

Does a falling market affect how much I can borrow?

Not directly. Lenders set borrowing capacity on your income, your expenses, your existing debts, and the assessment rate they apply, none of which are driven by property values. What has changed is the rate environment, which feeds into those assessment rates. A borrowing figure calculated six or twelve months ago may no longer reflect what a lender will approve today.

Should I get pre-approval before looking this spring?

It is worth doing. Pre-approval gives you a lender-verified figure to work with rather than an estimate, and in a market where sellers are negotiating more seriously, it signals that you can actually complete. Pre-approvals do carry an expiry, usually a few months, so it is worth checking the date on any you already hold before you start making offers.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is general in nature and is presented for informative purposes. It is not intended to constitute tax or financial advice, whether general or personal, nor is it intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about a financial product. It does not take into consideration your personal situation and may not be relevant to your circumstances. Before taking any action, consider your own particular circumstances and seek professional advice. This content is protected by copyright laws and various other intellectual property laws. It is not to be modified, reproduced, or republished without prior written consent.