Fewer Homes Are Being Listed, So Why Are More Sitting Unsold?
By Leigh Martinuzzi of Martinuzzi Group – eXp Realty | Sunshine Coast Real Estate
Key takeaways
- – Advertised stock across the capital cities is running 24% higher than a year ago, even though fewer owners are actually listing. New listings are tracking 6% below last year.
- – The build-up is being driven by demand, not supply. Cotality’s quarterly estimate of home sales is 15.5% lower than at the same time last year.
- – National dwelling values fell 0.9% in August. That is a fifth consecutive monthly decline, leaving values 3.6% below the March peak.
- – Locally, established stock remains genuinely scarce. Homes that present well and are priced sensibly are still achieving strong results.
There is something odd happening in the property data at the moment, and I do not think enough people have picked up on it.
Fewer homes are being listed for sale. At the same time, the total number of homes sitting on the market keeps climbing.
Both of those things are true at once. Understanding why is far more useful than the headline price figure everyone else has been running with this week.
What the Latest Numbers Actually Show
Cotality released its Home Value Index on 1 September, covering the month to 31 August.
The headline was a 0.9% fall in national dwelling values. That makes five consecutive monthly declines and puts national values 3.6% below the peak recorded in March.
Sydney led the falls at 1.4% for the month. Melbourne and Canberra were both down 1.1%, and Brisbane fell 1.0%. Adelaide and Perth each slipped 0.8%. Darwin was the only capital to hold ground, rising 0.6% and sitting at its peak.
Annual figures still look very different depending on where you are. Perth is up 15.6% over the year, Darwin 14.6%, Brisbane 10.8% and Adelaide 8.6%. Sydney and Melbourne are both negative over twelve months.
One figure that struck me was the spread. The share of capital city suburbs recording a value fall more than doubled through winter, going from 45.8% in autumn to 93%. That is not a handful of expensive pockets dragging an average around. That is nearly everywhere.
It is also worth noting that Cotality revised its July figure. The original print had July down 0.7%. In the August release, that was revised to a 1.2% fall.
I mention it because I quoted the earlier figure at the time, as did most people. The data has since moved. The market was softening a little faster through July than the first read suggested, which is a useful reminder that early numbers get refined.
The Listings Puzzle
Here is the part I find genuinely interesting.
Over the four weeks to 30 August, advertised listings across the capital cities were 24% higher than a year earlier and 8% above the five year average.
You would assume that means a wave of owners rushing to sell. It does not.
New listings, meaning homes freshly added to the market, were tracking 6% below the same time last year and 8% below the five year average. Fewer owners are choosing to list, not more.
So why is stock piling up?
Tim Lawless at Cotality put it plainly. Higher advertised stock levels come down to a slower rate of absorption. Homes are simply not clearing at the pace they were.
That is the whole story in one line. Listings are not accumulating because supply has surged. They are accumulating because buyers have stepped back.
The Number Behind It
If you want the evidence, it is sitting in the same report and almost nobody has quoted it.
Cotality’s quarterly estimate of home sales is running 15.5% lower than at the same point last year, and 11.5% below the five year average. In Brisbane, Perth and Sydney, estimated sales volumes are down more than 20% on a year ago.
That is a substantial drop in transactions.
Auction clearance rates have also been holding below 50%, and vendor discounting has widened.
This matters because it changes what the market is telling you. A market with too much supply is a different problem to a market with not enough buyers. The second one is what we are in, and it responds to different things.
What It Means for Homeowners
If you are staying put, very little of this touches you day to day.
Your repayments are not moving because of a monthly index. A softer market only becomes real at the point you sell, and most owners around here are sitting on considerable equity after the past five years.
The one thing I would suggest is worth doing is reviewing your loan. The cash rate has been held at 4.35% since 11 August, but lenders move their own pricing independently. The rate you signed up to may no longer be the best rate available to you.
That review may be worth more to your household than any headline about values.
What It Means for Sellers
This is where the listings data becomes practical rather than interesting.
If buyers are slower to commit, the competition for their attention gets sharper. Your home is not just being compared with the two others that came on this month. It is being compared with everything that has been sitting there since June and has not sold.
That changes the pricing conversation.
Pricing above the market used to cost you a couple of weeks. In these conditions it can cost you the entire early enquiry window, which is usually when the strongest buyers look. Homes that sit tend to attract lower offers later, not higher ones.
Presentation is doing more work too. When buyers have choice and no urgency, the home that is genuinely ready wins. The one that needs imagination gets passed over or negotiated hard.
None of this means it is a bad time to sell. Well prepared homes are still selling well, and I have watched it happen locally through winter. It does mean guesswork is expensive right now, and that the strategy matters more than it did six months ago.
What It Means for Buyers
You have more room than you have had in some time.
More stock, less competition, longer decision windows and vendors who are generally more willing to negotiate. That is a real shift, and it is worth using properly rather than rushing.
Borrowing capacity remains the constraint. The RBA has held at 4.35% for two meetings, but the next decision lands on 29 September and expectations have shifted noticeably. NAB is forecasting a rise in September. ANZ and CBA are leaning towards November. Westpac expects no change for the rest of the year.
I am not going to predict which way it goes. What I would say is that if your pre-approval is a few months old, get it refreshed before you keep looking. Plenty of buyers are still searching against a figure a lender may no longer support.
The Sunshine Coast Angle
Regional Queensland eased 0.5% in August and is down 1.3% over the quarter. Over twelve months it is still up 9.1%.
That is a market that has slowed, not one that has turned.
I wrote a fortnight ago about how the hinterland has been holding up better than the Coast-wide figures suggest, and I would not change that read.
There are a few reasons I think our patch may continue to hold up reasonably well.
Population growth has not stopped. People are still moving here, and lifestyle demand for this region has been remarkably durable through several cycles.
New supply is genuinely constrained. Land availability is limited, construction costs remain elevated, and I keep hearing about labour shortages from people working in the trades locally. Cotality made the same point nationally, noting that new housing supply remains insufficient relative to underlying demand.
That pushes demand towards established homes. Yes, more established properties have come onto the market here over recent months. But it is not a flood, and it is not enough to overwhelm the underlying demand.
This is why I keep seeing A grade properties achieve genuinely strong results while the broader commentary sounds gloomy. When good stock is scarce, buyers who can transact will still pay well for the right home. What they will not do at the moment is stretch for something average.
That gap between the best homes and the rest looks wider to me now than it did a year ago.
What I Would Watch From Here
The 29 September RBA decision is the obvious one, because borrowing capacity sits underneath everything above.
Beyond that, I would watch local stock levels in your own suburb rather than the national index. The number of comparable homes competing with yours right now will tell you more about your timing than anything published about the country as a whole.
My read is that the market has shifted rather than broken. Buyers are cautious and selective. Sellers who prepare properly are still doing well. The gap between those two groups is simply less forgiving than it was.
If you are weighing up a move over the next six to twelve months, it may be worth getting a clear read on where your property actually sits today, rather than working from a figure set earlier in the year. A short conversation can give you a lot more clarity before any decisions get made.
Get in touch with us today and and let’s give you fantastic results that you deserve.
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