February 2026

New Home Demand Hits High Despite rising construction and land costs, buyer demand for new housing has hit its highest level in four years. Data from REA Group shows that searches for new homes are highest in Queensland, which accounted for 31% of all new home searches in January. New South Wales is next, 20%

Finance Savvy Owners Australia’s homeowners are financially savvy with about two-thirds of mortgage holders revealing they got ahead by keeping their mortgage repayments at a higher level following interest rate cuts in 2025. A survey by Mortgage Choice shows many borrowers are proactively managing their mortgages. Only about a quarter of those surveyed lowered their

Finance Savvy Owners Australia’s homeowners are financially savvy with about two-thirds of mortgage holders revealing they got ahead by keeping their mortgage repayments at a higher level following interest rate cuts in 2025. A survey by Mortgage Choice shows many borrowers are proactively managing their mortgages. Only about a quarter of those surveyed lowered their

Record Infrastructure Spend One of the biggest factors influencing property markets is infrastructure spending and new data shows how much is being pumped into mega projects throughout Australia. There is $415 billion worth of definite projects in the pipeline and a further $160 billion in planning. According to the Deloitte Access Economics report, Australia is

Rental Surge Rental growth is continuing to outpace wage growth, pushing affordability to record lows. Nationally, rents are up by 5.4% in the 12 months to January and by 43.9% in the past 5 years. The regional markets have recorded stronger rental growth in the past 12 months with the combined regionals up by 6.1%

Land Costs Rising Faster Land prices are continuing to rise at about three times the rate of CPI. In the September quarter land prices grew by 10%, according to the HIA-Cotality Residential Land report. It says land prices have risen at three times the rate of construction costs in the past 25 years, adding substantially

Mortgage Surge Western Australia recorded the strongest mortgage growth of any state in the December quarter. Loan aggregator AFG says lodgements are up: In Western Australia, by 12.46% over the quarter and 37.49% over the year. Queensland is up 4.54% over the quarter and 27.87% over the year. Victoria is up 2.66% over the quarter

Listings Rising The number of properties listed for sale rose slightly in January, but remained much lower than at the same time last year. SQM Research data shows residential listings were up by 3.1% in January to 216,826 dwellings (from the seasonally low numbers in December), but were 11% lower than at the same time

Strong Start to Auctions The 2026 auction season has started strongly with a strong national clearance rate above 70%. Cotality data shows the national clearance rate of 73.7% last week was the strongest result since mid-October last year. Auction markets are generally fairly quiet at the start of the year but pick up pace from