Australia desperately needs more homes, yet the latest building approval figures show how difficult it will be to deliver them. National dwelling approvals fell 2.7% in July, with approvals for detached houses dropping 4.2% and units declining 0.4%. At the same time, the cost of building a new home is rising again, placing further pressure…
![Melbourne housing market update [video] | September 2026](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/melbourne-1-270x200.jpg)
Melbourne has now recorded nine consecutive months of falling values — the longest unbroken decline of any Australian capital city in this cycle. August delivered a further 1.1% fall, leaving the market 6.5% below its November cyclical high and 6.8% below the March 2022 peak. Melbourne is not correcting from a recent high — it…
Before we get into this week’s numbers, it’s worth stepping back and looking at where we sit in the cycle. The Reserve Bank held the cash rate at 4.35% at its August meeting, and it won’t sit down again until the 29th of September. Underlying inflation is still running above the RBA’s target band, and…
Australia’s housing downturn has reached the point where the exceptions have run out. Cotality’s House Price Index fell a further 0.9% in August 2026 — the fifth consecutive month of decline — leaving national home values 3.6% below the March peak. But the number that defines this month is not the headline figure. It is…
Six months ago the conversation about Australian property was all about resilience, about how our markets kept climbing despite thirteen rate rises and a cost of living squeeze that refused to ease. That conversation has changed. Australia’s property downturn gathered sharp momentum in July, with Cotality’s national Home Value Index (HVI) falling 0.7% – the…
There is no doubt that our housing markets are facing challenges from all directions, but clearly they have remained more resilient than the property pessimists had predicted. To better understand what’s happening, this monthly collection of charts from Cotality paints an interesting picture. According to Cotality, Australia’s most expensive homes are leading the housing downturn, with upper-quartile…
Most auction markets reported higher clearance rates from higher listings over the past week – with the exception of Sydney. Weekly Auction Results to Saturday, September 12th 2026 Capital City This Week Last Week Same Week Last Year Auctions Rate Auctions Rate Auctions Rate Sydney 706 57.8% 709 62.6% 989 77.1% Melbourne 768 64.2% 654…
Something interesting is happening in Australia’s property market, with auction clearance rates only telling part of the story. Auctions work best when several motivated buyers compete for the same property, creating urgency and pushing prices higher. But as buyer demand has softened in 2026, that competition has become harder to generate. New Domain research shows…
There is a dangerous tendency in Australia’s housing debate to assume that anything that makes life harder for property investors must automatically make life easier for first-home buyers and tenants. It’s a good political argument that sounds appealing, particularly when housing affordability is such an emotional issue, but housing markets don’t work in isolation. Investors,…
Capital city home rental vacancy rates generally tightened over August with most remaining at historically low levels. Despite low and tightening vacancy rates, rents for both houses and units however were mostly lower over the month. Hobart was the only capital to report higher monthly house rents, rising sharply by 2.4%. Perth rents were steady…
