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Key Points
  • PropTrack has analysed the number of homes added to the market in the month of August.
  • Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra had the most new listings for August in over a decade.
  • National new listings were 6.6 per cent higher over the month and 0.7 per cent lower year on year.
The housing market has been a source of pain for many Australians, but some buyers may be in for slight relief.
The number of homes added to the market in August increased by 6.6 per cent compared to the previous month, according to new data from property research firm PropTrack.
Looking longer term, the total number of national listings was 4.5 per cent higher than at the same time last year.
But while some cities had their most new listings for August in over a decade, the number of listings in regional markets was lower, and national new listings had a decline of 0.7 per cent year on year.

So what does this mean for buyers?

Where are property sale listings increasing?
Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra led the way with the largest increases in the number of new listings.
The number of properties added to the market increased by 16.3 per cent, 12.1 per cent and 24 per cent month-on-month respectively.

This marked the highest number of new buy listings in August since 2012 for Sydney, 2011 for Melbourne, and 2004 for Canberra.

Table showing new property listings in Australia's capital cities.

According to PropTrack, the number of new buy listings has increased in capital cities. Source: SBS News

New buy listings refer to properties added to the market for the first time in that month and do not include properties already on the market in the previous month.

Cameron Kusher, director of economic research at PropTrack, said that different factors impacted each city.
“In Sydney, people have got a lot of equity in their property because prices have increased quite a lot and they’re looking at the opportunity to upgrade,” he said.
In Melbourne, he said prices have “lagged behind quite substantially” and investment properties had become less attractive.
“I think in Melbourne what we’re seeing is a lot of people are selling investment properties because the Victorian state government has put up taxes on investors,” he said.

“And Canberra [is] probably more related to people just having delayed transacting for a while, and getting to the point where they need to move.”
Other capital cities experienced a drop in new listings, with Hobart, Darwin, and Adelaide experiencing the steepest declines in new listings year-on-year for August.

Perth and Brisbane experienced slight increases of 0.7 and 0.1 per cent year-on-year respectively.

Are there more properties available in regional Australia?

For buyers , the market remains challenging.

While there was an increase in properties added to the market in August, fewer properties were added compared with the previous year.

Regional areas in almost all states and territories recorded a reduction in new listings year-on-year. The only exception was regional Western Australia, which had an increase of 0.3 per cent.
“There’s definitely a differential between the capital cities and the regional markets,” Kusher said.

“A lot of people have moved regionally over the last couple of years, and maybe there’s not as much preparedness to sell at the moment as there is in capital cities.”

Table showing increases and decreases in properties listed for sale in regional Australia

There has been a decrease in the number of properties listed for sale in regional Australia in the last year, according to PropTrack. Source: SBS News

Will this benefit buyers?
Kusher said more properties on the market was good news for buyers and could lead to more options and provide some peace of mind.
“If you have more stock, that desperation that buyers have when there’s nothing coming to the market and there’s nothing on the market kind of abates,” he said.

“People feel like if they miss out on something, something else appropriate is going to come to the market in the not-too-distant future.”

He said more properties on the market and less competition could also lead to slightly lower prices.
“In a situation where there’s not a lot of for sale and there’s not a lot coming to the market to sell, there tends to be desperation from buyers [and] if something good comes to the market, they really want to secure that property,” he said.
“On the flip side of that … people are going ‘Well if I don’t get this property, there’s other properties to choose from’.
“So it just takes that urgency out of the market when you’ve got a lot of properties to choose from.”
Kusher said the Melbourne property market was an example of prices dropping when more properties become available.
The higher number of properties available in Melbourne helped put downward pressure on prices, he said.
“It’s certainly one of the contributors, prices in Melbourne have fallen by more than 1 per cent over the past year,” he said.

“Now you compare that with somewhere like Perth, where prices are up about 27 per cent over the last year … the total number of properties advertised for sale is down 19.7 per cent.”

Separately, data from property research firm CoreLogic examined hose prices in suburbs across the country between June and August.
In Melbourne, the value of residential properties declined in nearly 80 per cent of the suburbs examined.
House prices in suburbs including Crib Point on the Mornington Peninsula and Caulfield East in Melbourne’s inner-south dropped almost 7 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.
In Western Australia, the majority of suburbs analysed increased in value, while the number of properties listed for sale was below average.

In the three months to August 2024, prices did not fall in any of the Perth suburbs analysed.
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