The 18-Year Cycle Is a Myth – Here’s Why Property Won’t Crash in 2026

You can feel it building again, can’t you?

Watch a YouTube video, listen to a podcast or scroll social media and you’ll hear the same confident line being repeated like it’s gospel: “Property moves in an 18-year cycle… and 2026 is the year it all blows up.”

A surprising number of commentators are quoting it, even some economists who should know better.

They point to the crash of 2008, count forward 18 years, and declare the next crash is “due”, as if the property market runs on a calendar and not on people, credit and confidence.

The problem is this: the 18-year property cycle is a seductive story, not a reliable framework.

It’s a pattern people draw after the fact, then treat like a law of nature. Repeat he assertion often enough and people believe it.

The problem is that it’s not just a harmless theory, it’s the sort of idea that keeps investors waiting for a crash that doesn’t arrive, while the market quietly moves higher in the background.

Let’s clear something up right now.

If Australian property prices fall in a few locations in 2026, that won’t prove the “18 year cycle” theory. And if they don’t crash nationally, the cycle crowd will shift the goalposts, as they always do.

Because that’s what fuzzy “cycle theories” allow you to do.

First, this is what a real “property crash” actually looks like

A national crash is not just prices falling in a few pockets, or one city having a soft year or two.

A true crash is when you get widespread forced selling and at the same time buyers disappear, so sellers have to heavily discount just to exit.

So the real question isn’t “Is 2026 the magical year the cycle says we must crash?” but “do we have the conditions for mass forced selling across Australia?”

Why the 18-year cycle idea is wrong or at least dangerously simplistic

1. It assumes property behaves like one national market

It doesn’t. Australia is a collection of many markets, moving at different speeds, for different reasons.

Brisbane can surge while Melbourne stalls. Perth can boom while parts of Sydney go sideways. And within each city, A-grade family homes can outperform while secondary stock gets punished.

Fact is …markets move asynchronously by city and by dwelling type, which is exactly why one-size-fits-all cycle predictions keep failing.

If the 18-year cycle was real in a predictive sense, you’d expect much more synchronisation. You simply don’t see it.

2. It confuses correlation with causation

“2008 was bad globally. 18 years later must be bad again” is not analysis.

The 2008 crash around the world was driven by a global credit crisis. It wasn’t caused by property hitting a birthday. It was caused by credit markets breaking.

So if someone wants to predict a crash, they need to show a credible mechanism: an unemployment spike, a recession, a credit event, or widespread mortgage defaults.

Counting years is not a mechanism. It’s numerology dressed up as research.

3. It’s a story that works best in hindsight

Cycle believers love charts. They draw peaks and troughs and create neat sequences after the event.

But here’s the problem: if a theory is only “accurate” after you already know the outcome, it’s not a forecasting tool. It’s a storytelling tool.

And in property, the cost of believing the wrong story is huge, because time in the market matters more than timing the market.

• Also read:This week’s Australian Property Market Update – Latest Data, State by State February 24th 2026
• Also read:Melbourne property market forecast for 2026 | Is it a good time to invest in Melbourne?
• Also read:Latest Property Price Forecasts Revealed. Australian Property Market Outlook 2026: Where To Now After The Rate Rise.
• Also read:Brisbane Property Market Forecast [2026] – What’s Ahead & Where to Invest
• Also read:Sydney property market forecast for 2026. Is it a good time to invest in Sydney?

Could Australian property prices crash?

As I said, a national “crash” is not just prices falling in a few pockets - it’s when you get widespread forced selling at the same time buyers disappear, so sellers have to heavily discount to exit.

That’s the key point: crashes are driven by forced sellers, not by headlines.

So again, the real question is: “do we have the conditions for mass forced selling in Australia in 2026?” And the simple answer is no!

Why Australian property is unlikely to crash in 2026

Currently a raft of factors will underpin the resilience of our property market, including robust household wealth, minimal mortgage stress for the majority of borrowers, stable interest rates, conservative loan stress-testing by banks, a chronic housing supply shortage, substantial overseas migration, and a strong national economy.

We simply don’t have the conditions that would lead to mass forced selling.

A property crash normally requires either a sharp lift in unemployment, a deep recession, or a severe credit event each leading to homeowners and investors not being able to keep up with their mortgage payments and urgently needing to sell.

Without a broad wave of forced sales and no buyers around to buy those properties, you simply don’t get the mechanics of a crash.

And right now, we’re not staring at “forced selling at scale” conditions.

Australia’s housing shortage puts a floor under prices

Australia is dealing with a structural housing shortage.

Supply is constrained by feasibility, construction costs, labour availability, and the time it takes to get dwellings approved and completed. That means when prices soften, there’s typically a pool of buyers waiting on the sidelines, ready to jump back in when value appears.

Credit quality and buffers reduce systemic stress

Sure some borrowers are experiencing mortgage stress.

But systemic collapse requires widespread defaults and APRA has kept the mortgage serviceability buffer at 3 percentage points, and has repeatedly highlighted that lending standards remain sound and that non-performing loans remain low, while they keep watch on riskier pockets of lending.

Buffers don’t prevent all pain, but they reduce the chance that a moderate shock turns into a forced-selling avalanche.

The likely scenario is a fragmented market, not a cliff

What I expect is what we’ve seen repeatedly:

• periods of slower growth
• flat patches
• occasional dips
• then renewed momentum once rates stabilise and affordability adjusts

And the long-term trajectory is still driven by wages, inflation, supply constraints and population growth - not month-to-month sentiment or calendar-based cycle theories.

Your attachment also makes a useful point that many people ignore: some of the post-2020 “booms” look a lot less extreme once you account for inflation, and comparing indices over time can change the emotional narrative people attach to price movements.

What I’d watch in 2026 instead of an 18-year myth

If you want to be genuinely evidence-based, watch the drivers of forced selling and buyer disappearance:

1. Unemployment - a sharp spike is the real danger signal
2. Credit availability - tightening beyond buffers matters
3. Mortgage arrears and distressed listings - persistent broad rises are meaningful
4. Construction feasibility and pipeline - if supply genuinely surges, that can soften markets (rare quickly)
5. Segmentation - oversupplied pockets can fall even in a broadly resilient national market

In other words: watch mechanics, not mythology.

The bottom line

Could Australian property prices fall in some locations in 2026? Yes.

Could certain property types underperform? Absolutely.

But a national crash needs widespread forced selling plus evaporating buyers.

And given we’re not in mass forced-selling territory right now, Australia’s structural property undersupply, babks lending buffers and better credit quality,

• and a market that moves in fragments rather than one neat national cycle,

…the 18-year cycle crowd is far more likely to scare people out of good decisions than to predict the future.

Stop counting years. Start watching fundamentals.