How to read Australia's official housing price and activity figures

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Kooky

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A vendor asks what homes are worth in the state. A buyer asks whether investors are coming back. A landlord asks whether more apartments are on the way. Each question has an official answer in Australia, published free of charge by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) or the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), and each answer comes from a different publication with its own definition, its own timetable and its own blind spots.

This guide takes the four official sources one at a time: the ABS Total Value of Dwellings, the ABS Lending Indicators, the ABS Building Approvals and the housing graphs in the Reserve Bank's Chart Pack. For each it sets out what is counted, how often, what the latest issue showed, and what the figure cannot say. Every number below is the one printed in the issue named, with its period. The state figures cover New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the two territories.

ABS, Total Value of Dwellings, June quarter 2026, released 8 September 2026. Preliminary estimates.

Four publications, four different questions

The first thing to settle is which publication answers which question, because the four are not interchangeable. One values every home in the country, sold or not. One counts loans that lenders have agreed to make. One counts permits to build. The last is a set of graphs drawn from the others and from further sources.

The order of the table follows a home through its life in reverse. Building Approvals looks furthest ahead, at homes that do not yet exist. Lending Indicators looks at purchases being financed now. The Total Value of Dwellings looks at everything already standing.

Total Value of Dwellings: every home, sold or not

The ABS describes this release as estimates of the total value, number and mean price of Australia's dwellings, together with median prices and counts of residential property transfers. Its methodology states the purpose: the total value feeds the non-financial assets side of the household balance sheet in the national accounts. It was built to measure wealth, and the price information is a product of that work.

The scope is wide. According to the methodology, the estimate covers all residential properties whose primary purpose is residential, whatever the tenure, and whether owned by a government or privately. Detached houses, semi-detached, row and terrace houses, townhouses, flats, units and apartments are all in. Commercial property is out.

Two ingredients are multiplied together. The first is the number of dwellings. The ABS starts from Census dwelling counts and adds net additions since the last Census, taken from its Building Activity completions and adjusted by what it calls a long-term realisation rate, the average rate at which completed dwellings become net additions to the stock. The benchmarks in use come from the 2021 Census, introduced in the March quarter 2023.

The second ingredient is price. The methodology says sales data are supplied by CoreLogic, and that for the total value only records from state and territory land titles offices or Valuers General are used: real estate agents' data provided to that firm are excluded. Prices are stratified by small area (the ABS unit called Statistical Area Level 2) and by dwelling type, established houses on one side and attached dwellings on the other. The prices of the homes that sold in each small area then stand for all the homes there, including those that did not change hands.

The sale price is the price agreed at exchange of contracts, and the exchange date fixes the quarter a sale belongs to. In South Australia and the Northern Territory, the methodology notes, exchange dates are modelled.

For the June quarter 2026, the ABS put the preliminary total at A$12,688.9 billion, down A$34.1 billion from A$12,723.0 billion in the March quarter. Its media release, dated 8 September 2026, gave the fall as 0.3%. The number of dwellings rose by 54,400 to 11,531,100, and the value owned by households was A$12,183.3 billion. As a worked example from those two published figures: A$12,183.3 billion is 96.0% of A$12,688.9 billion, which leaves A$505.6 billion, or 4.0%, held outside the household sector.

Over a longer span the same series shows the scale of the change in wealth. The ABS table gives A$8,726 billion for June 2021 and A$11,696.7 billion for June 2025. From June 2025 to June 2026 the estimate rose by A$992.2 billion, or 8.5%, computed from the two published levels. That growth combines higher prices with more dwellings, which is why it is not a price change.

The mean dwelling price, state by state

The mean price is the figure most often lifted from this release. The methodology defines it simply: the total value divided by the estimated number of dwellings in the stock, across a whole state and all dwelling types together.

The national arithmetic can be checked from the published figures. A$12,688.9 billion divided by 11,531,100 dwellings gives about A$1,100,400, the mean the ABS published for the June quarter 2026, down A$8,200 from the March quarter. The ABS notes that it computes mean prices from unrounded figures, so a reader repeating the division on rounded components will not always land on the published number.

New South Wales had the highest mean price in the release, at A$1,304,900, and the Northern Territory the lowest, at A$614,400. The gap between the two is A$690,500, and the New South Wales mean is about 2.1 times the Territory's.

The quarter split the country. The ABS reported that the total value of dwellings fell in New South Wales by 2.0%, or A$92.9 billion, in Victoria by 1.6%, or A$44.3 billion, and in the Australian Capital Territory by 0.7%, or A$1.4 billion, and that it rose in every other state and territory. The national mean of A$1,100,400 therefore describes no single market: it is an average of places moving in opposite directions.

Why a mean price is not a price index

A mean of A$918,400 for Victoria does not say that a typical Victorian home sells for that sum. It is a mean across every house and every apartment in the state, in the capital and outside it, and a mean is pulled upward by the most valuable properties in a way a median is not.

The same release carries a second table with median prices and the number of transfers, for established houses and for attached dwellings, in each capital city and in the rest of each state. A transfer is a change of ownership, and the count is the release's indicator of sales activity. The ABS warns readers to exercise caution when comparing these medians with the mean price, and the two tables are built from different inputs: the methodology says the medians use the supplier's full file, agents' data included, from the March quarter 2014, while the total value uses registry and Valuer General records only.

This is where the official figures part company with private home value indexes. A price index is built to measure the movement of prices itself. The ABS no longer publishes one of its own: its Residential Property Price Index ceased after the December quarter 2021, and the total value, median and transfer tables that used to sit inside that publication now form the Total Value of Dwellings.

The two worlds are also connected. The methodology explains that the stratified method cannot be applied to the most recent quarter, because sales records reach the registries with a lag. For that quarter, the ABS estimates state-level price change from the same supplier's hedonic home value index, and models the number of dwellings from historical trends because completions are not yet known. The first official figure for any quarter therefore leans on a private index, and a reader comparing the two at that stage is not comparing independent measurements.

What separates them afterwards is purpose and timing. The official estimate is a level, in dollars, for the whole stock of a state, published about twelve weeks after the quarter ends. It answers the question of how much the housing of a state is worth. A private index answers the question of how fast prices are moving; how each provider builds its index is set out in that provider's own methodology, which this guide has not examined.

Preliminary, revised, final: how an estimate settles

Every figure in the latest quarter of the release is preliminary, and the ABS revises the two quarters before it as updated completions and sales records arrive. The life of one estimate runs over three issues.

After that third appearance, the methodology says, revisions occur only in exceptional circumstances. The medians and transfer counts move for longer: the most recent ten quarters can be revised, and the ABS warns that these revisions can be substantial, especially in the quarter after first release.

In the September 2026 issue this means the June quarter figures were first estimates, the March quarter figures had been revised once, and the December quarter 2025 figures were at their final stage. The practical consequence concerns quotation. A June quarter mean price quoted from this issue may differ from the June quarter mean printed in the next one, which the ABS has scheduled for 1 December 2026 with the September quarter figures. The issues after that are scheduled for 9 March 2027 and 8 June 2027.

Lending Indicators: commitments, not settlements

The second publication measures finance. Lending Indicators is released quarterly; the June quarter 2026 issue came out on 14 August 2026, and the ABS has scheduled the September quarter issue for 11 November 2026.

The data do not come from a survey of borrowers. According to the methodology, they come from the Economic and Financial Statistics collection, which the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority administers on behalf of the ABS and the Reserve Bank. Housing figures are reported on a form numbered ARF 743.0. The reporters are authorised deposit-taking institutions and registered financial corporations with housing credit of A$3.0 billion or more, a threshold the ABS says captures approximately 95% of lending activity. Lenders report a single number for each category; no loan-by-loan data are collected.

The unit is the new loan commitment, defined as a firm offer to provide a loan which has been accepted by the borrower. The commitment exists once the application is approved, a contract or letter of offer is issued and the borrower accepts. The headline dwelling series covers loans for the construction of new dwellings, the purchase of new dwellings and the purchase of existing dwellings. Refinancing is excluded and published separately, split between external refinancing (a new loan replacing one from a different lender) and internal refinancing with the original lender. Loans for residential land and for alterations and additions are separate series too.

In the June quarter 2026, seasonally adjusted, the ABS counted 134,225 new loan commitments for dwellings, down 5.4% on the quarter and up 0.1% on a year earlier. Their value was A$97.6 billion, down 5.2% on the quarter and up 6.8% over the year. The number of loans barely changed over twelve months while their value rose by nearly seven per cent, which says the loans were larger, not more numerous.

The ABS states the limits of the series in plain terms. The data do not represent all new loan commitments in Australia. The actual advance of funds may not occur in the same period as the commitment, or at all. And housing commitments are, in the methodology's words, not a direct measure of financing, sales or construction in the residential dwelling market. A commitment is evidence of intent to buy, recorded before settlement, from the larger lenders. A cash purchase leaves no trace in it.

First home buyers, investors and the size of a loan

The split by type of borrower rests on definitions worth reading closely. An investor loan, in the methodology, is a household loan for a residential property that is not owner-occupied, and that includes holiday homes and part-time residences that are not the borrower's principal residence. A first home buyer is a borrower entering the home ownership market for the first time, whether for owner-occupation or for investment; where a loan has several parties, it counts as a first home buyer loan only if none of them has owned a dwelling before.

For the June quarter 2026, the ABS reported 81,626 owner occupier commitments worth A$60.5 billion, down 3.3% by number on the quarter, and 52,599 investor commitments worth A$37.1 billion, down 8.6% by number and 10.2% by value on the quarter. Over the year, investor commitments were still up 2.8% by number and 8.1% by value. Owner occupier first home buyers accounted for 29,319 commitments, down 2.9% on the quarter and unchanged over the year, worth A$18.4 billion, up 10.0% over the year.

Three shares follow, as worked examples computed from those published figures. Investors made up 39.2% of the number of new dwelling commitments (52,599 of 134,225) and 38.0% of their value (A$37.1 billion of A$97.6 billion). First home buyers made up 35.9% of owner occupier commitments by number (29,319 of 81,626).

The same table holds a small lesson in seasonal adjustment. First home buyers at 29,319 and other owner occupiers at 52,324 add up to 81,643, not to the published owner occupier total of 81,626. Nothing is wrong: each series is adjusted on its own, so parts and totals need not agree to the last loan. The methodology makes the same point about geography, noting that state series are adjusted independently and are unlikely to sum to the national figure.

Average loan sizes are published in original terms, without seasonal adjustment. For owner occupier dwellings in the June quarter 2026 the national average was A$731,000. New South Wales stood at A$842,000, Western Australia at A$720,000, South Australia at A$672,000, the Australian Capital Territory at A$666,000, Victoria at A$664,000, the Northern Territory at A$545,000 and Tasmania at A$516,000. For investor dwellings the national average was A$708,000, with New South Wales at A$851,000 and Victoria at A$604,000.

Set against the mean dwelling prices above, these averages show how different the two measures are. A loan is the borrowed part of a purchase, for the homes that were financed in one quarter by the reporting lenders. A mean price is the value of every dwelling in the state. The ratio of one to the other is not a loan-to-valuation ratio, and the ABS does not present it as one.

Building Approvals: permits, not homes

The third publication is monthly, the most frequent of the four. A building approval, in the ABS definition, is the official permit that allows construction to begin; planning approvals are not counted. The figures are compiled from local government authorities and other principal certifying authorities, from contracts authorised by government authorities, and from media reports and the Building Activity Survey. Because it gathers every approval in scope, the ABS describes the collection as a census, not subject to sampling error. The methodology records that since July 1990 the statistics have included all approved residential building valued at A$10,000 or more and all approved non-residential building valued at A$50,000 or more.

A dwelling is defined as a self-contained suite of rooms, including cooking and bathing facilities, intended for long-term residential use. A house is a detached building of one dwelling unit. Everything else, from townhouses to apartment towers and dwellings created inside non-residential buildings, falls under dwellings excluding houses. Sector is decided by the intended owner at the time of approval, so social housing developments jointly funded by the public sector are classed as private sector.

For August 2026, seasonally adjusted, the ABS reported 16,953 dwellings approved, down 6.1% on the month and up 10.3% on a year earlier. Private sector houses rose 3.7% to 10,885 and were 18.4% higher over the year. Private sector dwellings excluding houses fell 21.2% to 5,674. The two private series add up to 16,559, which leaves 394 dwellings in the total outside them. Private houses were 64.2% of all dwellings approved in the month, computed from the published figures.

Value is reported too: A$11.30 billion of residential building, down 0.6%, and A$5.53 billion of non-residential building, down 44.8% in a month. The value is the estimated cost of the work when completed, as written on the approval documents. The ABS says it should exclude land, demolition and landscaping and has included the Goods and Services Tax since July 2000, and that for buildings other than houses final costs have often not been settled when approval is sought. It is a construction cost, never a selling price.

The page for the August issue shows two release dates, 30 September 2026 in one field and 7 October 2026 in another, and lists the September issue against both 2 November and 9 November 2026. The October issue is listed for 1 December 2026.

Seasonally adjusted or trend: which line to read

Monthly approvals can move sharply: private dwellings excluding houses fell 21.2% in August 2026 alone. The ABS publishes two treatments of the same data. Seasonal adjustment removes seasonal and calendar effects but, as the methodology says, not irregular influences such as large projects. The trend series smooths those as well.

In three of the five states shown, the two readings point in opposite directions for the same month. Victoria's approvals rose 8.9% seasonally adjusted while its trend fell 1.8%. South Australia's 24.0% jump shrinks to 2.9% in trend terms. The national trend figure was 18,202 dwellings, down 0.8% on the month and up 9.1% over the year, against the seasonally adjusted 16,953.

For the smallest jurisdictions only the trend is available: 73 dwellings in the Northern Territory and 223 in the Australian Capital Territory in August 2026. The ABS itself advises caution in drawing conclusions from monthly movements in small areas.

Trend is not a perfect record either. The methodology recalls that the trend series were suspended in early 2020 and reinstated with the May 2022 issue, and that the most recent months of any trend are revised as new data arrive. Late records are a second cause of revision: private certifiers lodge their approvals with reporting authorities, a step the ABS says can delay the data, and approvals are occasionally identified after work has begun. Revisions are generally confined to the last 12 to 18 months.

An approval is the start of a pipeline, not its end. The ABS uses the approvals collection as the sampling frame for its quarterly Building Activity Survey, the publication that measures work started and completed. The 54,400 dwellings added to the national stock in the June quarter 2026, in the Total Value of Dwellings, are the far end of approvals granted long before.

The Reserve Bank's Chart Pack

The Reserve Bank does not add a fifth housing statistic. Its Chart Pack is, in the Bank's description, a collection of graphs that summarises macroeconomic and financial market trends in Australia, updated monthly, with each graph available to view or download individually. The household sector pages were released on 30 September 2026 with data as at 24 September 2026.

Eight graphs make up that section. Five bear directly on housing: Private Dwelling Investment, Private Residential Building Approvals, Housing Prices and Household Debt, Housing Prices, and Housing Loan Commitments. The other three cover household income and consumption, consumer sentiment, and household wealth and liabilities.

The value of the pack is the long view. A single ABS issue shows the latest quarter or month and its change; a graph places that change in its history. Its limit is that a graph is a picture of someone else's data. The Bank points readers to a Data Availability page for the source data of the graphs. The sources of the individual housing graphs could not be read for this guide, so it does not state which provider stands behind the housing price graphs. A number read off a graph is only as good as the publication, official or private, that the Bank names as its source.

What the official figures leave unsaid

Read together, the four sources describe the national market from three sides: what the stock is worth, what is being financed and what is about to be built. Several things fall outside all of them.

None is a suburb figure. The Total Value of Dwellings is published by state and territory, with medians for each capital city and the rest of each state. None is current to the week: on 10 October 2026 the latest dwelling values and lending figures describe the quarter that ended on 30 June, and the latest approvals describe August. None follows a single property through time, and none reports asking prices, listings, days on market or auction results.

Some points of method are also left open by the pages themselves. The Lending Indicators methodology does not say whether a loan is assigned to a state by the location of the property or of the borrower, nor how the average loan size is calculated. The Total Value of Dwellings methodology refers to dwellings and land together when it describes the household balance sheet, without a separate statement on how land is treated in the estimate.

The definitions are the durable part. A mean price is a state's total housing value divided by its dwellings. A commitment is an accepted offer of a loan. An approval is a permit to start. Each word settles what the number beside it can be asked to prove.

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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