Australia housing market 2026: prices, costs, FSBO

After a strong 2025, the national market hit pause. The Cotality Home Value Index recorded 0.0 percent growth for May 2026, a flat reading that followed +0.3 percent in April. The latest published national median dwelling value sits at about AUD 933,137, with the combined capital cities closer to AUD 1,025,365. Annual growth is still positive at roughly +8.8 percent over the year to May, but it is decelerating quickly, down from 9.8 percent to April and 10.0 percent in February.

The national figure hides a clear split between the big two and everywhere else. Sydney fell 0.9 percent and Melbourne fell 0.8 percent over the month, both now below their late-2025 peaks, while smaller capitals kept rising: Perth +1.5 percent, Darwin +1.5 percent, Brisbane and Hobart +0.9 percent, and Adelaide +0.5 percent. The ABS, which tracks the mean rather than the median, put the average dwelling at AUD 1,111,100 for the March quarter across about 11.5 million homes. The mean always runs above the median because expensive homes pull it up.

For a quick sanity check on the asking side, on June 23, 2026 we pulled 25 live two- and three-bedroom house listings from Domain across Sydney and Melbourne. The median asking price came in at AUD 930,000, with Sydney near 990,000 and Melbourne near 905,000. Treat that as a narrow snapshot of smaller, lower-priced houses rather than a market-wide median: a sample skewed to compact stock will sit below the broad dwelling figures and well below each city's own median, so it is a directional read of seller pricing, not a confirmation of the headline. The published Cotality and ABS series remain the authoritative measures of where values actually sit.

Australia is structurally cheaper to sell in than the United States, for one reason: the big transfer tax falls on the buyer. Stamp duty (transfer duty) is a state tax the purchaser pays, so it is not a seller-side cost at all. As a vendor, your largest controllable expense is the agent's commission.

The seller, and only the seller, pays that commission. Australia uses a single listing-agent fee taken from the sale proceeds, not the split buyer-agent and seller-agent model the US runs. A buyer who hires their own buyer's agent pays that person separately. Nationally the commission typically runs 2 percent to 2.5 percent, with state averages varying (NSW near 1.94 percent, Victoria near 1.87 percent, Queensland near 2.45 percent), plus GST where it is not already quoted. On an AUD 850,000 home that is roughly AUD 17,000 to AUD 21,250.

The rest is modest by comparison. Conveyancing or legal work for the contract of sale and settlement runs about AUD 800 to AUD 2,200, and you cannot skip it: a licensed conveyancer or solicitor is required and lodges the transfer electronically. Marketing, photography, and signage commonly add AUD 1,000 to AUD 3,000 for a standard campaign. There is no notary system. Capital gains tax can apply if the property was not your main residence, so check that before you sell.

Selling for sale by owner is fully legal in every state and territory, and the dominant sale method, private treaty, already suits it. Most Australian homes sell by negotiated private treaty rather than auction, which means an owner can run the process directly without an auctioneer.

The one genuine constraint is exposure. The two national portals where buyers search do not accept listings directly from private owners, only from a registered agent or a licensed listing service, so reaching that audience means going through a flat-fee intermediary that uploads on your behalf. You can list free on Anyone.com as well, directly as the owner, with no fees on the listing. You still engage a conveyancer or solicitor for the contract, and in NSW and the ACT a compliant contract must be prepared before you can advertise at all. Front-loading that legal work is the part owners most often underestimate.

The trade is real work for real money. You set the price from comparable sold data, market the home, run the inspections, field offers, and manage the timeline to settlement. In return you keep the commission, which on a typical home is the single biggest cost of selling. With clearance rates at post-pandemic lows and selling times lengthening, presentation and a sharp asking price matter more than they did in 2025, and those are exactly the levers a motivated owner controls.