The Six-Month Stall
Time on market is the number to watch this spring, and it is telling a blunt story. One in four Australian homes listed for sale has now been waiting six months or longer for a buyer. Melbourne carries the largest share, above 21 per cent, ahead of Sydney on 18 per cent and Brisbane above 10 per cent, according to SQM Research.
SQM managing director Louis Christopher is blunt about why.
“Sellers need to understand in markets like this if they want to sell, they’ve got to meet the market,” he said. “This is a symptom of a very soft and weak market.”
What Is Stalling It
Two forces are doing most of the work. The first is interest rates: the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate to 4.60 per cent in late September, its fourth increase this year and the highest level in almost 15 years, cutting what buyers can borrow.
The second is tax. From 1 July 2027, negative gearing on residential property will be limited to new builds, and the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount will be replaced by indexation plus a 30 per cent minimum tax on gains. Both measures are now law, and while properties held before 12 May 2026 are unaffected, the signal to investors has been sent.
Stock has built up rather than cleared. More than 276,000 properties are listed nationally, a fifth more than a year ago, and the national combined asking price slipped further over September. As Christopher put it, “that’s a demand problem, not a supply surge.”
Where Homes Are Going Stale
Ranked by the share of their listings that have passed the six-month mark, and counting only suburbs with 30 or more properties for sale, the twenty worst affected are below. Officer South, at the top of the list, has a median around $830,000.
- Officer South (Melbourne): 52.9%
- Beaconsfield (Perth): 50.0%
- Tralee (Canberra): 44.4%
- North Coogee (Perth): 44.3%
- Coomera Waters (Brisbane): 40.5%
- Pitt Town (Sydney): 39.1%
- Robertson (Brisbane): 38.6%
- Hobart (Hobart): 37.8%
- Enfield (Sydney): 37.5%
- Gawler South (Adelaide): 37.2%
- Lynwood (Perth): 37.1%
- Barton (Canberra): 36.7%
- Beachmere (Brisbane): 36.6%
- Loganholme (Brisbane): 35.7%
- Ormond (Melbourne): 35.4%
- Hendra (Brisbane): 35.3%
- Silverdale (Sydney): 35.1%
- Turner (Canberra): 35.0%
- Oatlands (Sydney): 34.3%
- Pyrmont (Sydney): 33.7%
The list is spread across every mainland capital, which is the point: this is not one city’s problem or one price bracket’s.
The gap between what sellers want and what buyers will pay is the recurring theme. Brad Nicholls, principal at Harcourts Berwick, reckons values around his patch have given back roughly a tenth, yet owners are holding out for last year’s numbers. “People don’t want to think that they’re losing money,” he said.
The Pressure Behind It
The strain is showing in forced sales. Nearly 4,900 properties went to distressed sale in September, up 8 per cent in a month and close to a third more than a year earlier. The forecasts are just as sober: Morgan Stanley expects the deepest housing downturn in forty years, while Cotality’s data has the national decline running at its steepest since the 1980s.
What It Means For You
If you are buying, the balance has shifted your way for the first time in years. Asking prices are easing, clearance rates are weak, and a listing that has been sitting for months points to a seller under pressure rather than a property with hidden problems. That is leverage, but only if you know what the property is worth.
For sellers, the arithmetic is unforgiving. Holding out for last year’s price while the market moves away from it costs you every month the property sits, and those months are visible to every buyer who checks the listing history.
That is where MapView helps. Before you make an offer or set a price, you can see how long a property has actually been on the market, what comparable homes in the suburb have sold for, what development has been approved nearby, and what the running costs are likely to be. None of it changes what a seller will accept. All of it tells you what the number should be.
