NATIONAL HOUSING MARKET STALLS AS SYDNEY & MELBOURNE LOSE MOMENTUM

Australia’s housing market has lost momentum, with Cotality’s latest Home Value Index revealing national dwelling values were flat in May as affordability constraints, higher borrowing costs and weakening buyer sentiment continue to weigh on demand.

The national result masks increasingly divergent conditions across the country.

Sydney and Melbourne led the decline, with dwelling values falling 0.9 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively over the month.

Sydney values are now 2.1 per cent below their November 2025 peak, while Melbourne values sit 3.2 per cent below their March 2022 high.

In contrast, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide continued to record growth, although even the stronger-performing markets are beginning to show signs of slowing.

Perth again led the capitals, recording monthly growth of 1.5 per cent and annual growth of 25.8 per cent. Brisbane values increased 0.9 per cent in May and are now 19.1 per cent higher than a year ago, while Adelaide recorded a 0.5 per cent monthly rise and annua growth of 12.3 per cent.

Cotality Research Director Tim Lawless said Australia’s housing market continues to operate at vastly different speeds depending on location.

“We are continuing to see multi-speed conditions across Australia’s housing sector, with Perth and Melbourne at opposite ends of the spectrum,” Lawless said.

“The past five years have seen these cities diverge sharply, with Perth values up a stunning 91.4 per cent while Melbourne home values are only 3.3 per cent higher since May 2021.”

Lawless said while the pace of value growth remains highly varied between cities, a common trend is emerging.

“While the speed of value change remains very different from city to city, the direction is becoming more consistent, with most markets losing momentum as demand-side headwinds intensify.”

The slowdown is becoming increasingly evident in transaction activity.

National home sales over the past three months were estimated to be 2.2 per cent lower than a year ago and 4.1 per cent below the five-year average.

Sydney and Melbourne recorded the sharpest declines in sales activity, down 17.0 per cent and 14.2 per cent respectively compared to the same period last year.

Lawless said higher listing volumes are shifting negotiating power back towards buyers.

“These are also the cities where advertised supply has risen to above average levels, providing more choice and better leverage for buyers,” he said.

The softer conditions come despite ongoing supply constraints across much of the country. Construction costs remain elevated and feasibility challenges continue to limit new housing delivery, even as governments in NSW and Victoria continue to implement planning reforms designed to accelerate approvals and increase apartment supply.

For the new apartment sector, the data highlights an increasingly important divide between established housing markets and the off-the-plan market.

While detached housing markets in Sydney and Melbourne continue to soften, the supply of new apartments remains well below the levels required to meet population growth and federal housing targets.

This imbalance is likely to continue supporting demand for new apartment stock, particularly in major urban centres where affordability pressures are forcing more buyers towards higher-density housing options.

The latest rental figures also reinforce the underlying strength of housing demand.

National rents increased another 0.6 per cent in May, taking annual rental growth to 5.9 per cent. Vacancy rates remain at just 1.5 per cent nationally, matching the record lows experienced during the post-pandemic migration surge.

Lawless said renters are increasingly reaching affordability limits.

“With renters dedicating around a third of their pre-tax income to rental payments, it’s uncertain how much longer this upswing in rents can last,” he said.

The housing slowdown is unfolding against a backdrop of improving inflation data and growing confidence that interest rates will remain on hold when the Reserve Bank meets in June.

Australia’s monthly inflation indicator has continued to trend lower in recent months, reinforcing market expectations that the RBA is unlikely to lift the cash rate again in the near term.

Financial markets and economists have increasingly shifted their focus towards the timing of future rate cuts rather than the prospect of further tightening.

While the RBA remains cautious about services inflation and housing-related costs, recent inflation outcomes have largely eased concerns that another rate rise would be required.

That is providing some support to housing sentiment, although affordability and borrowing capacity remain significant constraints.

For now, Cotality’s data suggests the housing market is entering a more subdued phase rather than facing a sharp correction.

Affordability pressures, weaker confidence and slower sales activity are weighing on demand, while population growth, tight rental markets and constrained housing supply continue to provide a floor underneath values.

The result is a housing market that remains highly fragmented, with Sydney and Melbourne continuing to cool, while Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide remain in growth mode, albeit at a slower pace than seen over the past two years.

For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.

The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.

“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.

That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.

Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.

The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.

“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”

Collecting instead of decorating

Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.

Collecting is less conclusive.

A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.

That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.

A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.

The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.

For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.

Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.

A design perspective shaped by travel

International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.

Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.

More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.

“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”

Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.

Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.

A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.

The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.

Designing the complete experience

FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.

The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.

That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.

Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.

The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.

Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.

The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.

A home that can keep changing

The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.

Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.

“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”

That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.

The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.

This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.

Fact box

Designer: Jack Freeman

Role: Founder and managing director

Practice: FREEMAN & CO

Base: Australia, with international projects

Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean

Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts

Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation

Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials

Website: free-man.co

NATIONAL HOUSING MARKET STALLS AS SYDNEY & MELBOURNE LOSE MOMENTUM

Australia’s housing market was flat in May as falling values in Sydney and Melbourne offset continued growth in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.