Since the Budget, homes are taking two weeks longer to sell

A property entering today’s post-Budget market is spending two weeks longer on the market than before changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax were announced in May.

For the past three years, excluding January when holidays bring a seasonal pause, the median days a property stays on the market has hovered between 29 and 37 days. Even when inflation came in higher than expected in February and rates rose in response, days on market stayed at or below 2024 and 2025 levels. And when the Middle East conflict’s effect on oil prices peaked in April, national days on market held its ground again.

Looking at the data before May, you wouldn’t suspect anything unusual was building. If anything, the second half of the year is typically the faster half, but that is now appearing very unlikely for 2026. Median days on market have risen from 34 in May to 47 in just three months, finally reflecting the caution and uncertainty that has pervaded 2026.

All markets are slowing down but some more than others.

Perth’s median days on market has increased the most by 19 days (from 31 to 52) followed by Brisbane at 15 (from 31 to 46). Among regional areas, regional Queensland has slowed down the most, up 14 days (from 38 to 52).

Hobart has been affected the least, up just 3 days (from 28 to 31). Meanwhile, even after increasing by 7 days, Adelaide remains the fastest market in the country at just 28 days to sell.

To make sense of this is to understand how buyers and sellers react to each other. When the number of buyers exceeds the number of listings available, competition drives urgency, and median days on market drops. The opposite occurs and median days on market increases when listings enter the market without buyers showing up to buy them.

That’s why Perth and Brisbane are slowing down the most. Since the Budget was announced in May, the number of sales in Perth and Brisbane has decreased by 6.2 per cent and 6.1 per cent, respectively, while listings have continued to increase by 1.5 per cent apiece.

Demand in Sydney has decreased nearly as sharply, but supply is pulling back in step, keeping the buyer-seller balance closer together than in Perth or Brisbane.

Hobart sits at the other end of the extreme: demand, measured in volume of sales, has held steady while new listings have actually declined, which is why days on market have increased by only three days.

Three months in since May’s federal Budget, what’s clear is that the market we’re entering looks wildly different from the “new normal” we’ve settled into since the pandemic. Perth, Brisbane and their regional counterparts were the hottest markets of the last cycle, but they’re slowing most now; Adelaide, which grew steadily rather than explosively, remains the most resilient.

We’re still in the earliest stage of this shift, working with a narrow window to judge what it means. The restrictions to negative gearing and changes to capital gains tax model don’t come into effect until June 2027 while recurring tensions in the Middle East continue to complicate the outlook on inflation and interest rates. For now, the market is in a very fragile state, reacting to every shift in expectation about what’s ahead.