Australia's homes for sale rise 21.6% in a year as buyers hold back

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There were 276,839 residential properties listed for sale across Australia in September 2026, according to the monthly listings release that the data firm SQM Research published on Friday 2 October. That is 2.6 per cent more than in August and 21.6 per cent more than in September 2025.

Six days later, on Thursday 8 October, the chief executive of REA Group, the company that owns the listing portal realestate.com.au, told shareholders that further price falls were likely, according to the trade title Mortgage Professional Australia. Read together, the two accounts describe the market a vendor walks into this month: more homes competing for attention, buyers who take their time, and asking prices that have started to give a little.

SQM Research, Total Property Listings, September 2026, released 2 October 2026. Asking prices are SQM's weekly index for the week ending 29 September 2026.

What SQM Research counted in September

SQM Research splits its national count by the age of the listing. New listings, which it defines as properties on the market for under 30 days, numbered 80,496 in September. That was 8.7 per cent more than in August and 8.1 per cent more than a year earlier. Old listings, a separate category in the firm's count, numbered 79,134, up 2.3 per cent over the month and 10.5 per cent over the year.

The difference between those growth rates and the headline is the point of the release. Total stock grew by 21.6 per cent in a year, far faster than either the newest or the oldest group. Taking the new and the old listings away from the total leaves 117,209 properties that are neither fresh nor old, and that middle group is the largest of the three.

Louis Christopher, the managing director of SQM Research, said in the release that the bulk of the annual increase is property that has been on the market for one to six months and has not sold. In other words, the national count is rising mainly because homes are staying listed, and only partly because more owners are deciding to sell.

Why the firm calls it a demand problem

Sydney is the example Mr Christopher used. Fewer vendors are listing there than a year ago: SQM's figures show new listings in Sydney 9.4 per cent lower than in September 2025. Yet the city's total stock, at 39,068 properties, is 19.3 per cent higher than a year earlier, and its old listings are up 28.3 per cent.

"That's a demand problem, not a supply surge," Mr Christopher said in the SQM Research release.

The distinction matters to anyone preparing a sale. What SQM describes is not a wave of new sellers arriving at once: homes that came to market in earlier months are still there when the next month's listings arrive, so each new vendor meets the unsold stock of the vendors before them. Mr Christopher's reading, given in the same release, is that conditions are shifting in favour of buyers.

The month-to-month figures point the same way. New listings rose in September in six of the seven capitals covered here, by 10.2 per cent in Sydney, 5.1 per cent in Melbourne, 1.9 per cent in Perth, 3.7 per cent in Adelaide, 11.7 per cent in Canberra and 15.5 per cent in Hobart, with Darwin down 5.8 per cent. Those fresh listings are being added to a stock that was already higher than a year ago.

Other measures published in the same week sit alongside SQM's. Cotality, another data firm, put the inventory of homes for sale across the combined capitals 23.1 per cent higher than a year earlier in its October home value index report, dated 1 October. The trade title Real Estate Business, citing SQM's September data on 8 October, reported that old listings make up 28 per cent of all listings nationwide.

How the capitals compare

The national figure hides wide differences between cities. Melbourne has more stock than Sydney, with 49,341 listings against 39,068, up 1.8 per cent over the month. Total listings also rose over the month in Sydney (2.0 per cent), Perth (4.5 per cent), Adelaide (4.2 per cent), Canberra (1.7 per cent) and Hobart (2.5 per cent), and fell 3.1 per cent in Darwin. The table sets the yearly movements side by side with asking prices.

Two groups stand out. In Sydney and Melbourne, the oldest listings have grown by close to 30 per cent in a year, and asking prices are within about one per cent of where they were twelve months ago, slightly below in Sydney and slightly above in Melbourne. In Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart, old listings are fewer than a year ago and asking prices are still higher than they were, by between 4.0 and 10.1 per cent.

The smaller capitals are not uniform either. Adelaide's total stock is up 39.5 per cent in a year, the steepest rise in the table, and its new listings are 22.7 per cent higher than in September 2025. Old listings also rose over the month in every one of the seven cities, from 2.7 per cent in Adelaide to 22.7 per cent in Darwin, with Perth up 10.9 per cent. Hobart is the only capital of the seven where total listings are lower than a year ago.

Within a city the picture can change again from one suburb to the next. Real Estate Business reported that in Officer South, in Melbourne's south-east, 53 per cent of homes for sale had been listed for six months or more. The same article quoted Matt Ketteringham, a director of the agency Barry Plant Pakenham, describing buyers as very cautious about committing.

Asking prices have started to move

SQM Research also tracks what vendors ask, through a weekly index. For the week ending 29 September 2026, the national combined asking price was 0.4 per cent lower than a month earlier and 3.6 per cent higher than a year earlier. Asking prices for houses fell 0.4 per cent over the month and those for units 0.2 per cent.

The monthly moves were not uniform. Asking prices rose over the month in Sydney (0.6 per cent), Canberra (0.1 per cent), Darwin (1.2 per cent) and Hobart (1.1 per cent). They fell in Melbourne (0.6 per cent), Perth (1.1 per cent) and Adelaide (1.0 per cent). Perth and Adelaide are therefore cities where the yearly figure is still clearly positive while the latest month points down.

An asking price is the figure on the advertisement, not the figure on the contract. An index of asking prices shows how vendors and their agents are setting expectations, and a fall in it means that advertised prices are being set lower or cut. It is not a record of what homes sold for.

Distressed listings: small, but rising

The release gives one more category, and it is the one Mr Christopher singled out. Distressed listings numbered 4,872 nationally in September, up 8.0 per cent over the month and 29.2 per cent over the year.

"Distressed listings remain the key indicator we are watching," he said in the release. He added that the numbers remain relatively contained but that the trend is clearly upward. Set against the total, 4,872 distressed listings are a little under 2 per cent of the 276,839 properties for sale.

By state and territory, New South Wales had 1,054 distressed listings, 10.5 per cent more than in August and 10.6 per cent more than a year earlier. The yearly rises were much larger in South Australia (91.1 per cent), Western Australia (64.3 per cent) and the Australian Capital Territory (93.9 per cent), where the monthly rises were 11.0, 4.5 and 8.5 per cent. Victoria's count was up 1.9 per cent over the month and 0.4 per cent lower than a year earlier. Tasmania's rose 23.9 per cent over the month and was 21.0 per cent lower over the year. The Northern Territory's was unchanged over the month and 7.1 per cent higher over the year.

What REA Group's chief told shareholders

Cameron McIntyre, the chief executive of REA Group, spoke to shareholders on Thursday 8 October, nine days after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised its rate to 4.6 per cent, Mortgage Professional Australia reported. REA Group owns realestate.com.au and the mortgage broker Mortgage Choice. Australian Broker, another trade title, reported the same remarks on 9 October as made at the company's general meeting.

"Interest rates are the biggest factor contributing to market uncertainty at the moment," Mr McIntyre said, as quoted by Mortgage Professional Australia. The title also quoted his outlook on values: "Further price falls are likely over the coming months."

His figures come from REA's own portal and cover a quarter, where SQM's cover a month. According to Mortgage Professional Australia, national new listings of homes for sale on REA fell 2 per cent in the September quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier. New listings in Melbourne and Sydney fell 16 per cent, reversing growth of 8 per cent in the June quarter. Mr McIntyre described a two-speed market, the title reported, with smaller capitals offsetting quieter conditions in the two largest cities.

The two sets of numbers measure different things and are not directly comparable. SQM's national new listings for the single month of September were 8.1 per cent higher than a year earlier, while REA's national figure for the three months to September was 2 per cent lower. REA's 16 per cent fall is one figure for Melbourne and Sydney together, while SQM's September count has new listings lower over the year in Sydney and 7.9 per cent higher in Melbourne. Neither source describes a rush of new sellers in Sydney.

Mr McIntyre's remarks were not only cautious. Mortgage Professional Australia reported that he expects consumer confidence to improve and buyer activity to pick up. The title also cited the September 2026 edition of NAB's Housing Monitor, which recorded a 0.9 per cent fall in national dwelling prices in August, the fifth monthly decline in a row.

What vendors will be watching next

Two dates are already set. The Reserve Bank's next decision is due on Tuesday 3 November 2026, and REA Group reports its first-quarter results in November, according to Mortgage Professional Australia. Mr McIntyre named interest rates as the main source of uncertainty, so the first of those dates bears directly on the buyers that vendors are waiting for.

The September release also suggests which lines to follow in SQM Research's next count. The first is the gap between new listings and total listings: if the total keeps growing faster than fresh stock, homes are still accumulating. The second is the old listings count in Sydney and Melbourne, where it has grown fastest over the year. The third is distressed listings, the indicator the firm itself says it is watching.

For an owner deciding when and how to sell, none of these figures settles the question. They are national and city-wide measures, and SQM's own breakdown shows how far one capital can sit from another, with stock in Hobart lower than a year ago and stock in Adelaide up by 39.5 per cent. What a particular home competes against depends on its suburb, its type and its price bracket, and that is a matter for local evidence.

What the September numbers do establish is the general setting. There are more homes on the market than a year ago in six of the seven capitals covered here, a large share of them have been waiting for more than a month, and national asking prices slipped over the latest month.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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