The Week The Forecasts Became Results
A downturn predicted for most of this year became countable in the past five days. Both of the country’s biggest listed builders reported September-quarter trading, each smaller than a year earlier, and Domain’s quarterly survey found median house prices lower in every capital city: the second time on record, and the first since 2011, with up to $89,000 removed from the steepest markets (Domain).
Who These Two Companies Are
Mirvac and Stockland are the two biggest ASX-listed builders of Australian housing, so their quarterly updates work as a national sales report. Mirvac holds $23.7 billion of assets, develops apartments and housing estates, and owns office, industrial, retail and build-to-rent property; in the year to June it exchanged 2,425 residential lots, 15 per cent more than the year before, at a 23.9 per cent gross margin (Mirvac). Stockland is the bigger home builder, settling 8,902 lots across its masterplanned communities in the same year, up 30 per cent, and owns shopping centres and logistics warehouses (Stockland).
Why Their Numbers Make You Sit Up
Both updates look forward. The lots exchanged this quarter are contracts signed off the plan, most settling within two years, and Stockland’s enquiry count sits at the top of that funnel, so fewer deposits today becomes fewer settlements, less construction and softer land values later. Both were growing a year ago. Both turned negative in the same three months.
What Mirvac Exchanged
Mirvac recorded 429 net deposits and lots exchanged in the September quarter, against 619 a year earlier (Mirvac), 31 per cent fewer. Settlements rose to 291 from 265. It reaffirmed guidance of 13.2 to 13.4 cents of operating earnings per security and a 9.9 cent distribution, resting on 2,800 to 3,000 settlements. Chief executive Campbell Hanan said: “The residential operating environment in FY27 has been challenging, consistent with our outlook in August.” Pre-sales of about $1.4 billion, 97 per cent portfolio occupancy and a $200 million buy-back three-quarters done carry the company through the slowdown.
What Stockland Exchanged
Stockland reported 1,506 net residential sales for the same quarter, 22 per cent below the June quarter, with buyer enquiries 71 per cent lower than a year earlier. It held its earnings guidance as well.
The Rate Underneath Both
The Reserve Bank has lifted the cash rate four times this year, in February, March, May and September, taking the target to 4.60 per cent from 3.60 per cent in December 2025 (Reserve Bank of Australia). AMP calculates those increases trimmed roughly $45,000 from what someone earning $109,000 can borrow compared with January. Forecasts stay wide: HSBC expects 13 per cent nationally by mid-2027, Cotality’s Tim Lawless 10 to 15 per cent, and AMP’s Shane Oliver 20 per cent as a worst case.
Why The Listings Keep Arriving
SQM Research counted 276,839 residential listings nationally in September, 21.6 per cent more than a year earlier. Melbourne holds 49,341, the most of any capital, up 30.3 per cent. Cotality’s latest index put national values 1.1 per cent lower for the month, the sixth consecutive decline.
What It Means If You Are Buying
Two forces are pulling in opposite directions and they do not cancel out. Falling values and rising listings give a buyer room to negotiate, compare more than one house on the same street, and decline a vendor’s number. Rents are still climbing, with Melbourne’s median at $600 a week in September, 5.3 per cent above a year earlier (realestate.com.au), which puts a price on waiting, and the rate rises that dented builder sales have already cut how much you can borrow. Open the Time to Buy or Sell tile for your suburb to see which side of that line it sits on. The evidence that matters is local: how long comparable homes take to sell, and how far below asking vendors accept.
The builders have told us what they see inside. Your suburb will tell you what it means for your price.
