In this episode, Damien and Jeremy cover the July data update, checking in on how the market has moved roughly three months on from the May Federal Budget announcement.
Capital Cities: House Markets Overview
Darwin remains comfortably in front nationally with a DSR3 score of 80, well ahead of Perth at 71, with a cluster of capitals sitting around the 60 mark, and Brisbane and Adelaide around 50. Sydney was the only capital to see its DSR3 improve over the month (up one point, from 61 to 62), while Brisbane, Perth, and Hobart each eased slightly, and the remainder were unchanged, an overall minor softening in demand relative to supply, but nothing Jeremy considers alarming.
Typical values remain materially cheaper in Darwin and Hobart, with most other capitals sitting around the $1 million mark, aside from Sydney, closer to $2 million. Darwin also leads on yield at 5.1%, with every other capital under 4% except Hobart. On market cycle timing (a forward-looking score reflecting the likelihood of an approaching growth phase), Perth's score has dropped to just 17, though Jeremy stresses this doesn't mean Perth's growth is over, only that it's more likely closer to its peak than the start of a fresh boom, while Brisbane and Adelaide appear to have already had their major runs. Melbourne and Canberra, by contrast, show meaningfully more cycle runway ahead, with scores in the 50s. One-year growth eased across almost every capital, with Perth still leading at 21.2%, down from a prior 24.5%. Stock on market remains reasonably tight overall, ranging from 0.6% in Adelaide to 1.1% in Melbourne and Brisbane, against a historical norm of around 1%.
Houses: One-Month Change
Looking at the past month specifically, only Darwin and Hobart saw typical values tick up, while every other capital declined, Canberra the hardest hit, with Melbourne down around 2.2%. Jeremy notes this trend is tracking very closely with Cotality's own figures for the same period (which also showed a decline), and expects the trend to level out given the underlying DSR scores, but flags that further shifts in buyer sentiment may still need to flow through the data, making next month's figures (marking a full three months since the federal budget announcement) particularly worth watching.
Damien shares an on-the-ground observation that higher price points, particularly in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Canberra, appear to have been hit hardest, with properties that might have sold for $2.5 million a year ago now closer to $2 million in some markets, partly reflecting fewer investors in the market, but also flowing through to owner-occupier sentiment amid broader negative media coverage. Jeremy notes rising interest rate concerns may also be weighing on owner-occupier confidence specifically.
Houses: Stock on Market
Supply picked up in several capitals over the month: Adelaide saw a 10% increase in listings (48 additional houses), Brisbane around 9%, Darwin 8–9%, and Perth 6%, while Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, and Hobart all saw stock ease slightly. Jeremy clarifies that a falling stock-on-market figure is actually the favourable outcome (indicating buyers outperforming sellers), noting Hobart's example specifically: a genuine 40-dwelling reduction (from 575 to 535 houses) appears as a dramatic 7% swing purely because of how small that market is in absolute terms, reinforcing the scale gap between smaller capitals (Hobart and Darwin, both under 300 total houses on market) and larger ones (Melbourne around 22,000, Sydney around 14,000).
Houses: Days on Market
Days on market rose across the board except Perth (which actually improved slightly, down one day to 43) and Brisbane, a roughly 10% increase overall, which Jeremy expects to continue into next month. He notes days on market appears to be a particularly sensitive indicator of shifting sentiment, though cautions that Hobart's nearly 30% jump reflects a small market moving off a low base rather than a dramatic shift in underlying conditions.
Houses: Market Cycle Timing (12-Month Change)
Jeremy explains market cycle timing is geared toward a roughly three-year outlook, since forecasting accuracy drops off the further out a prediction extends, whereas the DSR3 overall incorporates this alongside a broader view. He highlights Canberra's market cycle timing jumping 10 points over the past 12 months, suggesting it may increasingly be discussed as an up-and-coming growth market, though he flags land tax as a likely point of resistance for some investors, noting one Melbourne-based buyers agency he's aware of avoids Canberra specifically for this reason, despite Canberra's meaningfully higher yield than Melbourne. Both reiterate that differences in yield or holding costs (potentially a few thousand dollars a year) are consistently dwarfed by differences in capital growth between markets, which can easily differ by 10 percentage points or more.
Melbourne currently sits at the top of the 12-month market cycle timing change (56), alongside Canberra and Sydney, reflecting that these markets haven't yet had their major growth run, in contrast to Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane, which have. Jeremy notes this reinforces a broader distinction: an investor with a longer time horizon (five to seven years) might reasonably favour Melbourne given its price point and status as one of the world's largest cities, while a shorter-term investor might still prefer a market like Perth, despite its lower market cycle timing score, given the growth potential of the DSR3 score overall.
Capital Cities: Unit Markets
Units have held up notably better than houses this month. Darwin remains the standout on DSR3 (79) by a wide margin, with the cheapest entry price of any capital (under $500,000) and the highest yield (7.5%), alongside tight vacancy (market cycle timing around 50) and low stock on market (0.4%). Damien notes that with recent negative gearing changes, a market like Darwin, with strong net cash flow characteristics, may leave investors less out of pocket than expected, combined with a strong DSR3 score over the next three to four years.
Perth's unit market has softened slightly (DSR3 down from 67 to 65, growth easing from 26% to 24%), still a strong market, but with more of its growth run behind it than ahead, in contrast to Darwin. Jeremy also highlights a specific cluster of strength in Sydney's unit market, roughly around Harris Park, North Parramatta, and North Rocks, where prices can be found under $600,000, a notable outlier for Sydney more broadly (where the typical house price sits closer to $1.8 million). Damien cautions this doesn't mean every Sydney unit is a good buy, especially highrise developments, but sees genuine opportunity in specific, well-selected pockets for owner-occupiers and investors alike, particularly renters currently priced out of the market.
Units: One-Month Change and Stock on Market
Sydney was the only capital to see unit values drop over the month; every other capital (aside from Melbourne, roughly flat) picked up, notably Brisbane, up around 2% (roughly $15,000) in a single month. Both caution against reading too much into a single month's figure, and flag a fuller quarterly comparison as a planned addition to future updates. Stock on market rose in Adelaide (up nearly 19%), Perth, Brisbane, Hobart, and Darwin, while Melbourne stayed flat and Canberra and Sydney saw stock ease. Jeremy attributes the general rise in listings less to a rush of vendors selling and more to buyers becoming somewhat more cautious, leaving properties sitting on the market for longer.
Units: Days on Market and Market Cycle Timing
Days on market for units rose overall (around 10%), most sharply in Hobart (33 to 42 days, up 27%, again a small market effect), with Melbourne, Darwin, and Adelaide also rising more than 10%, while Brisbane held steady at 42 days. Market cycle timing for units has shown relatively little change over the past 12 months nationally, which Jeremy attributes partly to continued demand at the cheaper end of the market, as some buyers priced out of houses shift toward units instead.
Key Takeaways
Damien's summary: stock on market is likely to continue rising, and momentum is cooling nationally, though unevenly, some previously hot markets are maturing while others look comparatively better positioned. This is reflected in the July monthly change specifically: houses down around 0.9% nationally, while units rose around 2% over the same period. Both note that despite negative media coverage broadly, several markets are still showing genuine investor activity and solid growth, and flag next month's data (covering a fuller three-month window since the budget announcement) as an important checkpoint.
Closing Thoughts
Damien and Jeremy note the underlying data shown in these updates is available directly through the Suburb Data research platform, and plan to start sharing direct links to their search results so listeners can explore the same data themselves. They also flag upcoming plans for further content, including a possible webinar, and invite feedback on what other metrics listeners would like to see covered, including a possible shift to quarterly rather than monthly change figures going forward.