State of the Property Market: What the Latest Data Means for Sellers

The market does not move as one country. In the week to 28 June 2026, fewer than half of the homes taken to auction across the capital cities sold under the hammer, the second week running below the 50 per cent mark and the softest run since the COVID lockdowns. At the same time, Perth values are up almost a quarter on a year ago. Read the headline number alone and you will misread your own street.

I spent more than 15 years as a licensed agent and called over 2,000 auctions before I built Unreserved. So I read these weekly numbers the way a seller should, not for the drama, but for the one question that matters: what does this mean for the money I walk away with? Below is the latest Cotality data, what it tells us about where the market sits, and the part of the equation a soft market puts squarely back in your hands.

The market in one glance

Four signals tell you where the market sits this week. Auction clearance is weak and softening. Values are flat to falling in the south and still rising in the west and the smaller capitals. New stock is thin, yet total stock is climbing because homes are taking longer to sell. Rents remain tight but the annual pace is cooling. Here are the national numbers behind that picture.

Indicator	This week / latest	A year ago
Preliminary clearance rate	49.2%	67.9%
Homes taken to auction	1,771	2,044
Combined value change (28 days)	-0.5%	n/a
Combined value change (12 months)	+6.2%	n/a
New listings (4 weeks, capitals)	20,614	+10.7% total stock
Combined capital median rent	$735/wk	+5.8% annual

Source: Cotality (RP Data) Property Market Indicator Summary, all data to week ending 28 June 2026; rental and value figures from the Cotality Daily Home Value Index.

Auctions: clearance rates at COVID lows

The preliminary combined clearance rate edged up to 49.2 per cent from 47.4 per cent the week before. That sounds like a recovery until you see the company it keeps. This is the second week in a row under 50 per cent, and final results have been landing about 5 percentage points below the preliminary read all month, so the real figure will likely settle in the low 40s. A year ago the same week cleared 67.9 per cent. The gap between those two numbers is the whole story.

Sydney cleared just 47.3 per cent, its weakest early result since April 2020. Melbourne slipped to 50.2 per cent, the softest since the city’s sixth lockdown in September 2021. Brisbane sat lowest of the capitals at 39.3 per cent. Adelaide bucked the trend, clearing 68.7 per cent on volumes nearly 28 per cent higher than a year ago. The chart below shows how far this week has fallen from the same week in 2025 across every major market.

Source: Cotality Property Market Indicator Summary, preliminary capital city auction statistics, week ending 28 June 2026.

Two numbers under the clearance rate matter even more to a seller. Roughly one in five auctions, 21.5 per cent, was withdrawn before it ran. And of the homes that did sell, 41.3 per cent sold before the auction even started. Read those together and the message is plain: the auction theatre is not what clears a home in this market. Accurate pricing and real negotiation are. Vendors are also reading the room, with 1,771 homes auctioned, down 13.4 per cent on a year ago, as sellers hold back rather than test a weak crowd.

Values: a genuinely two-speed market

The Cotality Daily Home Value Index splits the country down the middle. Over the past 28 days, Sydney fell 1.2 per cent and Melbourne fell 0.9 per cent, dragging the combined capitals down 0.5 per cent. Yet Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide all rose. Stretch the lens to 12 months and the divide is wider still: Perth is up 23.9 per cent and Brisbane up 17.6 per cent, while Melbourne has gone backwards. The table sets the four time frames side by side so you can see which way your city is actually pointing.

City	Month	Year to date	12 months
Sydney	-1.2%	-3.4%	+0.3%
Melbourne	-0.9%	-3.5%	-0.7%
Brisbane	+0.3%	+6.2%	+17.6%
Adelaide	+0.3%	+4.8%	+11.9%
Perth	+0.7%	+8.7%	+23.9%
Combined capitals	-0.5%	+0.2%	+6.2%

Source: Cotality Daily Home Value Index, 28-day, year-to-date and 12-month change to 28 June 2026.

Notice the direction of travel even in the strong cities. Perth grew 23.9 per cent over the year but only 0.7 per cent over the past month. The heat is coming out of the boom markets at the same time the southern capitals soften. Regional Australia is holding up better than the capitals, up 0.3 per cent over the 28 days while the combined capitals fell. For a seller, the lesson is to price to this month’s market, not last year’s headline.

Supply: fewer new listings, more homes sitting

Across the capitals, 20,614 new listings hit the market over the four weeks to 28 June, down 1.2 per cent on a year ago. New supply is thin because vendors are cautious. But total listings tell the opposite story: 78,716 homes were advertised, up 10.7 per cent on last year. Fewer homes are coming on, yet more are stacking up, which only happens when properties take longer to sell. That backlog hands buyers more choice and more time, and it pulls negotiating power toward them. A home that lingers on a busy market starts to look like the problem, even when it is just priced for a market that no longer exists.

Rents: still tight, but the heat is fading

The combined capital median rent reached $735 a week to May 2026, up 5.8 per cent over the year. Vacancy sits at a tight 1.4 per cent, and gross yields hold at 3.5 per cent. The tightness is real, yet the annual growth rate has cooled from the double-digit pace of recent years. For investors weighing a sale, the rent covers less of a mortgage than it used to as yields compress, which sharpens the focus on the costs of transacting. If you do sell, every dollar of avoidable selling cost is a dollar off your return.

What this means if you are thinking of selling

A soft market is not a closed market. Homes still sell every week across all of these cities. What changes is the margin for error. When buyers are spoilt for choice and clearance sits in the 40s, the careless campaign gets exposed and the disciplined one gets the result. Three things move the needle now.

• Price to the evidence, not the hope. With 41 per cent of auction sales happening before the day, the buyers are out there for fairly priced homes. Set the number off recent comparable sales in your suburb, not a 2024 anecdote. Our free AI valuation reads the same comparable sales the data houses use.
• Expect to negotiate. One in five auctions is being withdrawn. A flexible private treaty or a sale agreed ahead of auction is often the cleaner path when the live crowd is thin.
• Protect your net. When the market is not adding to your price, the money you keep is decided by the costs you cut. The largest controllable one is commission.

The number you actually control

You cannot control the clearance rate. You cannot control whether your city is Perth or Sydney this year. You can control what you pay to sell. In a rising market, growth hides that cost, because a fast-moving price makes a percentage commission feel like a rounding error. In a flat or falling market, the disguise drops. The price gives you less, so the fee takes a bigger bite of what is left.

Run the maths on a $1.2 million sale. A traditional agent charging 2 to 3 per cent takes $24,000 to $36,000 in commission. That figure does not shrink because Sydney values fell 1.2 per cent last month. It is the same dollar drain whether the market lifts you or works against you. Unreserved charges one flat fee instead, so the difference stays with you. The platform runs the AI valuation, the buyer matching, the campaign and the negotiation, and you keep what the commission would have taken. You can see the gap for your own price with our savings calculator, and the full process in how Unreserved works.

The market will keep doing what the data shows: pulling apart city by city, cooling where it was hot, softening where it was already slow. None of that is yours to steer. The fee you sign up for is. In a market this uneven, that is the smartest decision a seller can make. For the wider context behind these figures, the Cotality newsroom publishes the full indicator summary each week.

Frequently asked questions

What is the auction clearance rate in Australia right now?

For the week ending 28 June 2026, the preliminary combined capital clearance rate was 49.2 per cent, up slightly from 47.4 per cent the week before but the second straight week below 50 per cent. Final results have run about 5 points below preliminary all month, so Cotality expects the final figure in the low 40s. A year earlier the combined rate was 67.9 per cent.

Are house prices falling in Australia in 2026?

It depends on the city. Over the 28 days to 28 June 2026, Sydney values fell 1.2 per cent and Melbourne fell 0.9 per cent, while Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth all rose. The combined capitals eased 0.5 per cent for the month. Over 12 months Perth is up 23.9 per cent and Brisbane up 17.6 per cent, so it is a two-speed market, not one national trend.

Is now a good time to sell a house?

Buyers are cautious and about one in five auctions is being withdrawn, so a soft market punishes a mispriced campaign. It does not stop a well-priced home from selling. In the week to 28 June, 41.3 per cent of successful results were agreed before the auction, which shows accurate pricing and negotiation are doing the work. The bigger lever you control is cost: when values are flat or falling, the commission you pay eats a larger share of a smaller gain.

Why does agent commission matter more in a soft market?

When prices rise fast, growth hides the cost of a percentage commission. When values are flat or falling, the price gives you less, so the money you keep depends on the costs you control. Commission is the largest. On a $1.2 million sale, a 2 to 3 per cent commission is $24,000 to $36,000. A flat fee leaves that difference with the seller whichever way the market moves.

Which Australian cities still have rising property values?

Over the 12 months to 28 June 2026, Perth led at 23.9 per cent growth, then Brisbane at 17.6 per cent and Adelaide at 11.9 per cent. Sydney was almost flat at 0.3 per cent and Melbourne fell 0.7 per cent. Even the strong cities are slowing month to month, with Perth’s monthly gain down to 0.7 per cent.