THE MARKET SPLIT
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THE MARKET SPLIT
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The Australian property market 2026 split in two over the June quarter. Cotality's national Home Value Index fell 0.7% over three months, the sharpest quarterly drop since January 2023, even as annual growth held at 7.3%. Sydney and Melbourne posted quarterly falls of 3.2% and 2.6%. Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin closed the same quarter at record highs. This page walks through the split by city, by price tier, and by what changed in November 2025.
National home values fell 0.7% over the three months to June 2026. Every headline this month leads with the same word: correction.
Values are still 7.3% higher than a year ago. The national number is real, and it is hiding almost everything that matters this quarter.
Sydney fell 3.2% for the quarter and Melbourne fell 2.6%. Sydney now sits 3.7% below its January 2026 peak, Melbourne sits 4.0% below its March 2022 peak. Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin closed the same quarter at record highs. Regional Australia rose 1.1% for the quarter while the combined capitals fell 1.3%.
The pale thread running down the screen is the country. It forks here on the quarter's numbers, then fans out across the past twelve months, city by city.
Distance below record price, quarter to June 2026. Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin sat at record highs in the same quarter. Cotality Home Value Index.
One national number, minus 0.7, is carrying eight local stories that run from +23.9% in Perth to −0.9% in Melbourne. The clay threads closed the quarter at record highs; the pale ones sit below their peaks.
Tap any thread to isolate one market, or keep scrolling for the numbers behind all of them.
Every figure behind the split above, in one table. Quarterly and annual change from the Cotality Home Value Index, and how far each capital sits below its record price, or whether it set a new one this quarter.
| City | Quarter | Year | Vs peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | −3.2% | +0.3% | −3.7% (Jan 2026) |
| Melbourne | −2.6% | −0.9% | −4.0% (Mar 2022) |
| Canberra | −1.3% | +2.9% | −2.9% (May 2022) |
| Hobart | +1.4% | +9.3% | −0.7% (Mar 2022) |
| Brisbane | +1.3% | +17.4% | Record high |
| Adelaide | +1.3% | +11.6% | Record high |
| Perth | +2.0% | +23.9% | Record high |
| Darwin | +5.0% | +19.8% | Record high |
| Combined capitals | −1.3% | +6.1% | |
| Regional Australia | +1.1% | +11.0% | |
| National | −0.7% | +7.3% |
Source: Cotality Monthly Housing Chart Pack, July 2026.
Sydney's top quartile fell 4.6% over the quarter while its cheapest quartile fell just 0.7%. Melbourne shows the same shape: top quartile down 4.0%, bottom quartile down 0.3%. In Perth, Hobart and Darwin the cheapest homes rose more than 3% for the quarter while the top slipped or barely moved. The correction is concentrated in expensive homes in Sydney and Melbourne, while the cheaper end of seven other capitals is holding or rising.
A Bank of Queensland economist briefing we attended in July made the same point independently: the most expensive suburbs swing hardest, while the lower and mid-priced suburbs where first home buyers shop have stayed stable. First home buyers made up 29.0% of owner-occupier lending in the same period, above the 27.6% decade average, helped along by the 5% deposit guarantee scheme.
Sydney and Melbourne are highlighted by default. Tap any city to compare it.
Source: Cotality Monthly Housing Chart Pack, July 2026, stratified value tiers; first home buyer share from the same pack citing APRA lending data; Bank of Queensland economist briefing attended July 2026.
House price growth peaked around November 2025, the month financial markets stopped pricing rate cuts and started pricing rates staying high. That point was made independently at the Bank of Queensland briefing, and it lines up with what happened next: the auction share of new listings peaked near 45% that same November and had fallen to just over 30% by June.
The Reserve Bank confirmed the shift. Three consecutive hikes added 75 basis points across the first half of 2026, and the cash rate has held at 4.35% since June. The average owner-occupier variable rate sits near 6.23%. Cotality's own read is that rate cuts are unlikely before well into 2027.
Investors made up 40.3% of new lending in March, excluding refinancing, the highest share since September 2016, in the months before the Federal Budget's negative gearing changes reached existing homes (new builds stay exempt). Research cited at the briefing puts the long-run drag on price growth at 2% to 7%, with the larger effect coming from leveraged investors exiting into a rental market already sitting at 1.6% vacancy with rents up 5.9% over the year.
Sources: Cotality Monthly Housing Chart Pack, July 2026; RBA cash rate decisions, first half of 2026; APRA new lending data as relayed in the Cotality pack; Bank of Queensland economist briefing attended July 2026; FGO's own weekly tracking of Cotality auction results.
Everyone reads Melbourne's quarter as the loser of the split. The same numbers make a different case. Melbourne's median home price now sits at $839,000 against a $903,000 national median, cheaper than Canberra and behind only Hobart and Darwin among the capitals. For decades Melbourne ran second only to Sydney on price, and it now sits below the national median.
Victoria's population growth is running above the national average, and Melbourne home sale volumes rose 3.9% over the year even as prices fell. Buyers are still active; they are simply paying less.
Buyers in Sydney and Melbourne are getting some negotiating room back. Owners in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide are sitting on record equity. Investors are watching a rental market this tight against a fresh set of tax rules for existing home purchases. That is what the numbers show this quarter, city by city, tier by tier.
None of this stands still: Cotality reprints the index every month, auction results land every Saturday, and the gap between the eight threads above moves with them. We track both and send one letter a month with the numbers that changed and what they mean for borrowers. For your own half of the conversation, a 30-minute call covers what the split means for your borrowing power, which lenders have appetite for your scenario, and what is worth doing this quarter versus later.