August 2026 Market Update

Last month we wrote that Perth was the last capital standing, but that the pace had turned. In August, numbers are mixed for Perth for the first time this cycle. Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) put the national Home Value Index down 0.9% in August, deeper than July’s 0.7% and the steepest month of this downturn. The quarterly change widened to -3.1% from -1.9%, annual growth collapsed to 2.7% from 5.3%, and the index now sits 3.6% below its March 2026 peak. The combined capitals fell 1.1%, with annual growth down to 1.1%. Sydney fell 1.4% and is 7.1% below its February peak; Melbourne and Canberra fell 1.1%, Brisbane 1.0%, Adelaide and Perth 0.8%. Cotality also has 93% of capital-city suburbs recording a fall, up from 45.8% in autumn. That one matters. Through autumn this was a top-end correction. In August it went broad. 

Perth’s number was -0.8%. Cotality’s median dwelling value now sits at $999,987, back under a million. The three-month change is -3.2% and annual growth has eased to 15.6% from 20.5%. But read the ranking, not just the sign: Perth and Adelaide recorded the smallest falls of any mainland capital, and Perth’s annual growth is still the strongest in the country. Anyone still quoting 20% growth is quoting July, not August. That being said, this does contradict REIWA reported price metrics. 

Here is where most commentary this month falls over. In the same month Cotality says Perth dwelling values fell 0.8%, REIWA’s Perth median house price rose 1.1% to $960,000, up 20.0% on the $800,000 of August 2025. Both are correct. Cotality’s index estimates what every dwelling in Perth is worth, sold or not. REIWA’s median is the midpoint of what actually transacted. When volumes thin and the mix of what sells shifts, the median can rise while values ease. Use the index for direction, the median for what people paid, and never one to disprove the other. 

The mechanism is rising supply meeting a slower buyer. REIWA 7312 total listings at the end of August, up 7.8% on July and the eighth consecutive monthly rise. A year ago it was 2,981. Stock has more than doubled. Sales went the other way, with 624 in the final week against 753 in July, taking the sales-to-stock ratio to 7.9% from 10.0%. That is the weakest reading in our series outside a December shutdown. Days on market stretched to 23, against 14 in June. Buyers are still turning up, they are simply taking longer to sign. Some of the listing lift is seasonal, but eight consecutive rises is a trend, not a spring. 

Two counterweights. Rents are still tight: the median house rent lifted to $750 a week, up 8.7% over the year, unit rents held at $700, up 7.7%, and vacancy was 2.2% in July, below the 2.5% to 3.5% band that constitutes balance. The median land price also jumped to $458,000, up 24.5% over the year, the strongest growth of any Perth series we track. Land does not behave like that in a genuine housing surplus. Perth does not have too many homes, but the market needs time to adjust to a sharp increase in properties for sale over the past 8 months 

In the City of Melville the median house price rose 2.2% in August to $1,635,500 and is up 16.8% over the year, the opposite direction to the national number, which is why it gets quoted without context. So watch time on market. Median days to sell stretched to 19 in August, from 15 in July and 13 in June, though still faster than Perth’s 23. And sales did not collapse alongside it: 85 for the month against 86 in July, while listings rose to 182, up 7.7% on July and 30.9% on the 139 of a year ago, easing the sales-to-stock ratio to 31.8% from 33.7%. Buyers have not left this market. They are taking longer to commit. Units say the same: median $875,000, up 15.1% annually, with 94 listed. This is a flight-to-quality market. Buyers here are patient and competitive at once, and they will wait out anything that is almost right. 

Across our core local suburbs, listings on realestate.com.au rose to 241 at the end of August, up 25.5% on July and 58.6% on the 152 available a year ago: 

• Applecross 68 to 84 

• Mount Pleasant 33 to 35 

• East Fremantle 13 to 23 

• Booragoon 14 to 21 

• Attadale 16 to 19 

• Ardross 9 to 18 

• Melville 16 to 18 

• Bicton 18 to 11 

• Alfred Cove 5 to 8 

• Myaree 0 to 4 

Nine of the ten added stock. But Alfred Cove at eight and Myaree at four remain critically tight. More stock across the district does not mean more stock that suits you. 

On the drivers, the RBA held the cash rate at 4.35% on 11 August, its second consecutive hold after 75 basis points of increases this year. The ABS has headline CPI easing to 3.5% in the year to July from 3.8%, but the trimmed mean, the measure the Bank steers by, unchanged at 3.6% and still above the 2 to 3% target. Borrowing capacity is not improving, and that bites hardest at the top of our market. National unemployment ticked up to 4.5% from 4.4%, with employment down 15,800 after a 76,300 surge in June. Consumer sentiment rose 6% to 88.9 on the Westpac-Melbourne Institute index, though below 100 pessimists still outnumber optimists. Iron ore, on the 62% Fe benchmark, finished August around US$96 a tonne, down 6.3% over the year, which is soft rather than distressed. And the ABS has WA’s population growing 2.2% in the year to December 2025, the fastest of any state against 1.5% nationally. That remains the floor under this market. Investors are also working through the May Budget, with negative gearing limited to new builds from 1 July 2027 per the ATO, and some of the listings arriving now are that recalculation showing up. 

So has Perth joined a downturn? On a Perth wide bases – no, it has not! Though structural changes continue to take place. Perth does still have the fastest population growth in the country, vacancy below balanced levels, and affordability is a factor the eastern states gave away years ago. This is a stock-driven pause, not a Sydney-style correction. From here, watch five things: the rate of increase in listings rather than the level, whether the sales-to-stock ratio holds near 7.9% or keeps falling, the next median price print, days on market, and whether rental vacancies pushes through 3%. Forecasts are probabilities, not promises, and the probability this stock build clears quickly has fallen. 

For sellers, pricing on hope is finished. With 241 local listings competing for a smaller, slower buyer pool, precision on price and presentation is the whole game. Price ahead of this market and you will not get a correction, you will get silence, and then you will discount anyway. For buyers, this is the first real window in two years: more choice, more time and real negotiating room. Get finance-ready and be decisive, because the shortage has not gone anywhere and windows like this close faster than anyone expects. 

That is the August wrap. No spin, just what the data says and what it means for your property.