It’s Christmas in July as auctions heat up around the capitals
Cashed up buyers will have more property options to choose from this weekend
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Winter is the new spring in Australian property circles, with scheduled auctions once again increasing this weekend, CoreLogic data shows.
Auctions across combined capital cities are up 16.7 percent week on week at a time of year when the market traditionally slows down.
Sydney leads the numbers race, with 736 properties to be put to market this weekend, representing an impressive 21.5 percent increase. The figures also represent a 9.2 percent increase on the number of homes sent to market this time last year.
Brisbane has contributed significantly to the winter listing trend, with 172 homes ready for market this weekend, a 67 percent increase on the previous week. CoreLogic data notes that this has been heavily influenced by 29 properties set to be auctioned at an in-room event on Saturday. Adelaide buyers will also have more to choose from, with 115 properties listed for this weekend, a 12.7 percent rise on the previous week’s numbers.
It’s a less dramatic upswing in Melbourne, with 689 properties set to be auctioned, up 6 percent from the previous week when 650 homes were listed. However, Melbourne recorded the highest clearance rate of all the capitals last weekend at 68.8 percent. Adelaide was not far behind at 68.6 percent, followed by Sydney on 67.5 percent. Perth had the lowest clearance rate at 40 percent.
The increasing number of properties entering the market come on the back of concerns about rising levels of mortgage stress among borrowers. However, data indicates that levels of mortgage arrears are still relatively low buoyed by historically high levels of employment.
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The typically busy spring season for the housing market was a dud, and the summer isn’t looking much brighter.
Housing services companies like Zillow Group and Rocket RKT +3.78% were loud and clear last week on earnings calls: Rocket CEO Varun Krishna called the quarter through June “one of the toughest spring housing markets in years.”
Jeremy Hofmann, Zillow’s chief financial officer, said on a conference call that the company predicted earlier this year that the market for mortgages would be flat. “We actually now think it’s going to be down low-to-mid-single digits,” he said.
The rest of 2026 will remain challenging for mortgage origination volume, says KBW analyst Bose George. The question now is what happens in 2027. “If mortgage rates remain [around] 6.75%, I think that’s going to be challenging even for next year,” he says.
But what’s bad news for mortgage companies could be a positive for bargain hunters. Buyers can expect prices to grow more slowly—or mildly decline—with less competition as long as mortgage rates remain unpredictable.
Mortgage rates at the beginning of the year were solidly below year-ago levels, notes Zillow senior economist Kara Ng. But they surpassed last year’s levels recently, she adds, referencing Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of 30-year fixed mortgage rates. Last week’s reading, at 6.69%, was higher than year-ago levels for the first time in 2026.
“From the affordability point of view, it’s going to get more challenging in the second half of the year,” she says. “And when affordability gets more challenging, that impacts sales and home price appreciation.”
Mortgage application data tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association has cooled since the beginning of the year. The trade group expects that the number of mortgage originations in the remaining two quarters will lag behind last year’s levels, after exceeding 2025 levels in the first half.
Rocket’s early-stage data—which the company told Barron’s it derives from its brokerage Redfin, demand for its mortgage products, and signs in its servicing portfolio that a homeowner is preparing to refinance or move—“leads us to expect the third quarter mortgage market to be smaller than the second,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Brown, said on the company’s call. He added that such an occurrence is “something the industry has not seen since 2022.”
Prices will be about flat nationally, Ng says. Zillow’s most recent forecast, which shows how values are expected to change in the year ending June 2027, show them dropping in roughly half of the 100 largest U.S. metros for which data is available.
Buyers aren’t rushing in at a time when mortgage costs are rising and unpredictable. But those with the right combination of patience and cash could stand to benefit. “If you are financially qualified to buy a starter home, you are facing less competition and you’re more likely to get a price cut,” Ng says.
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