Prices Continue To Rise
Australia’s housing market has hit a new high, with property prices rising in almost every capital city and region over July.
PropTrack data shows dwelling values nationally rose everywhere but the ACT (down 0.2%) during July, leading to 4.9% year-on-year growth.
It says nationally the median dwelling price is now $827,000, the median house price is $915,000, and the median unit price is $678,000.
The regional markets are the top performers in the 12 months to August in the house market, led by Regional South Australia, up 12.3%, Regional Western Australia, up 10.2% and Regional Queensland, up 9.4%.
Across the capital city house markets, Adelaide is the strongest with its median up 9.5%, followed by Brisbane, up 7.8% and Darwin, 6.5%.
PropTrack senior economist, Anne Flaherty, says while the increases over July are small, the market remains resilient.
“Auction clearance rates are the highest they’ve been in more than two years,” she says.
In the unit market, Regional South Australia is once again the top performer with growth of 13.8%, followed closely by Brisbane, 13% and then Perth, 11.4%.
Forget Taxes, Fix Supply
The Housing Industry Association is urging policymakers to prioritise increasing housing supply over changing investor taxes, such as negative gearing. Its comments follow the release of a new report by the McKell Institute recommending changes to taxes on property investors.
HIA chief economist Tim Reardon says the core cause of the housing crisis is
the insufficient number of homes relative to population growth, not investor
activity.
“Australia has 27 million people, and 11 million homes,” he says. “Even if investors are banned from owning homes, the problem remains that there aren’t enough homes. ”Reardon says the cause of the housing shortage is not negative gearing and suggests addressing Australia’s undersupply requires less tax, fewer fees, and fewer regulatory barriers.
“An acute undersupply of housing is evident across all markets following
decades of ongoing tax imposts on housing and additional costs imposed by
local, state and Australian governments,” he says.
About half of Australian investors are positively or neutrally geared, according
to FY2023 tax data released by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in July
2025.
Auctions Shake Off Winter Chill
Australia’s auction market has managed to shake off the winter chill with clearance rates holding steady.
Nationally, the preliminary auction clearance rate has been above 70% for eight consecutive weeks and was 72.3% last week, according to Cotality figures. The previous week it was 74.7% which is the highest rate since this time last year.
Sydney had the highest clearance rate last week of 74.9%, Melbourne was 71.8%, Brisbane, 71.1%, the ACT, 65.8% and Adelaide, 65.1%.
SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher says listings are still low, but he expects the pace to pick up leading into the Spring Selling season, which starts in about three weeks.
“The market is clearly stronger than where we were this time last year,” Christopher says.
“We believe that we’ll be seeing more first-time buyers enter the market in the second half of the year, particularly if we get another rate cut. A number of renters want to turn themselves into first-time buyers when they get the opportunity.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
HIA chief economist Tim Reardon
“Australia has 27 million people and 11 million homes. Even if investors are banned from owning homes, the problem remains that there aren’t enough homes.”
Australia's Most Wanted-Suburbs
New analysis shows where properties are so in demand that they are being snapped up at a rate of more than one day.
In Sydney, Blacktown, Marsden Park and Castle Hill house markets all chalked up more than 365 sales in the past 12 months. While in its unit market, Parramatta, Liverpool, Dee Why, Epping and Ryde were the leaders.
In the Melbourne CBD, apartments are sold at the equivalent rate of every four hours in the past 12 months, with more than 2200 changing hands.
In Greater Melbourne, Tarneit had 1602 house sales during the same period, the equivalent of more than four sales a day. Greater Melbourne has more than 60 suburbs with more than 365 sales in the past 12 months.
In Queensland, Surfers Paradise gives the Melbourne unit market a run for its money with more than 1200 unit sales in the 12 months to July.
PropTrack data for the 12 months to July 2025 shows there are 126 markets where there was the equivalent of more than one house or unit sale a day for every day of the year.
Overseas Students Aren't Behind Rent Rises
Analysis by the Reserve Bank of Australia shows that, contrary to popular opinion, overseas students are not having a big impact on rent increases.
The analysis says the post-COVID international student boom only increased rents and inflation “marginally”.
“Models of the housing market used by the RBA suggest that a 50,000 increase in population would raise private rents by around 0.5% compared with a baseline projection,” it says.
Almost a quarter of international students live with family or friends, 15% in student accommodation, 3% in a homestay and 2% in ‘other’ accommodation.
The Federal government put a cap on the number of arriving international students last year to ease pressure on the private rental market.
It announced this week that it will allow universities to increase international student numbers in 2026 if they can demonstrate the delivery of additional student accommodation.
The Student Accommodation Council has welcomed the announcement with Executive Director Torie Brown saying every student in a student accommodation building is a student, not competing in the private rental sector.
