Perth listings double since the start of 2026
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- Perth dwelling prices increased by 0.25 per cent last week, although weekly growth has slowed markedly from the 0.5 per cent-plus rates recorded earlier in 2026.
- Listings increased to 5,574 while sales fell to 631, pushing the sales-to-listings ratio to its lowest meaningful level in several years and reinforcing evidence that Perth’s market is rebalancing.
- The expiry of the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) could place further pressure on rental affordability, particularly for lower-income households already facing rising rents.
Prices increased by 0.25 per cent last week and, increasingly, Perth’s property market appears to be characterised by two distinct phases so far in 2026. During the first three months of the year, weekly price growth averaged approximately 0.51 per cent. As Figure 1 illustrates, we have included a brown trendline at the 0.5 per cent mark to highlight how consistently strong weekly growth was throughout that period.
However, since the beginning of April, weekly growth has averaged around 0.29 per cent. To reflect this moderation, we have included a green trendline at the 0.3 per cent mark. While there has been greater week-to-week volatility since April compared with earlier in the year, with two weeks in early May driving the average up, the key issue now is whether Perth’s market is stabilising around this lower growth rate or whether weekly growth will continue trending lower toward zero or even negative territory in some weeks.
We touched on this last week in the newsletter, discussing whether the recent moderation represented a new, more sustainable phase of growth or the beginning of a broader slowdown in market conditions.
The 0.25 per cent increase last week lifted Perth’s median house price by approximately $2,600, taking it to just below $1.034 million. Dwelling values have now risen by more than $93,000 so far this year. Therefore, while price growth may be moderating relative to the extraordinary conditions earlier in 2026, weekly increases of more than $2,000 and annual growth approaching $100,000 in just six months continue to contribute significantly to worsening affordability pressures.
Given the much slower pace of income growth, it is clear that housing affordability continues to deteriorate. In our view, this worsening affordability is one of the reasons weekly price growth is now moderating. As prices rise further beyond household borrowing capacity and income growth, fewer buyers can compete at current price levels, gradually reducing demand-side pressure in the market. This affordability constraint is also becoming increasingly evident in Perth’s non-linear price projection, which has begun to flatten noticeably compared with the much steeper trajectory implied earlier in the year.
Figure 2 shows that Perth’s median house price growth has continued to flatten relative to the stronger growth recorded earlier in 2026. However, a degree of consistency is emerging in this moderation, with the median house price continuing to track the non-linear projection relatively closely. Importantly, this projection has remained broadly stable over recent weeks and continues to suggest prices could peak at around $1.050 million in August or September before easing back toward $1 million by the end of the year.
What we are particularly interested in over the coming months is whether this moderation in growth continues and eventually transitions into periods of weaker, or even negative, weekly price growth. This is becoming increasingly plausible as the sales-to-listings ratio continues to decline and market conditions gradually recalibrate away from heavily favouring sellers. Offsetting this shift, however, is the broad underlying housing undersupply that has characterised Perth’s market over recent years. As we discussed last week, WA is still estimated to be short at least 20,000 dwellings, which should continue to provide support for prices even as market conditions soften.
Nevertheless, Perth’s housing market has historically been more volatile than those of the larger eastern states because of its close relationship with the resources sector. Following the end of the mining investment boom, Perth dwelling prices fell by approximately 20 per cent between 2015 and 2019. While current market conditions are very different, this episode demonstrates that periods of sustained price declines are not unprecedented in Perth when economic conditions weaken sufficiently.
The supply of established dwellings for sale continues to increase at a remarkably consistent pace, reinforcing the view that Perth’s housing market is gradually shifting away from the extreme seller conditions that characterised much of 2025 and early 2026. Perth recorded 5,574 listings at the end of last week, approximately 5 per cent higher than the previous week and more than double the level recorded at the beginning of the year. Importantly, this increase has now persisted for more than two months, suggesting the rise in listings is structural rather than seasonal and reflects a genuine change in market conditions.
Figure 3 highlights just how quickly listings are now increasing. We updated the chart from last week to include both a linear and non-linear projection through to the end of 2026. The non-linear projection continues to suggest listings could rise toward 17,000 later this year, while the more moderate linear projection implies listings slightly above 9,000. What is particularly notable is that actual listings data continues to track very closely to the non-linear trajectory, indicating that the acceleration in supply has not yet begun to flatten meaningfully.
While it still appears unlikely that listings will continue accelerating at the current pace indefinitely, particularly given Perth’s underlying housing undersupply and strong migration continuing to support demand, the consistency of the recent increase is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. The market is clearly becoming more balanced, and if this trend persists, the additional supply should continue to place downward pressure on price growth and reduce the intensity of competition between buyers.
While listings continue to rise rapidly, sales activity is weakening, with Perth recording just 631 transactions last week, down 8 per cent from the previous week. Over the past several years, weekly sales have generally fluctuated between 800 and 1,000, and this pattern remained broadly intact throughout most of 2025 and the early part of 2026. However, the weaker sales volumes recorded since April are increasingly difficult to dismiss as temporary volatility, particularly as the softer results persist.
Figure 4 highlights an important distinction in the recent sales data. The sharp decline highlighted by the red circle largely reflected seasonal disruptions associated with Easter, ANZAC Day, and school holidays, which temporarily reduced transaction volumes. In contrast, the weaker sales activity highlighted by the green circle appears more significant because it has occurred outside those major seasonal disruptions and has persisted over several consecutive weeks.
Importantly, since early April, only one week has recorded sales comfortably above the 800 mark. The slower turnover of properties is also contributing to the continued rise in listings, as buyer demand is no longer absorbing new stock at the pace seen during the much stronger market conditions of late 2025 and early 2026. This increasingly suggests the moderation in demand is becoming structural rather than seasonal, reinforcing the view that Perth’s housing market is gradually shifting away from the extreme seller conditions experienced over recent years.
While both the listings and sales data point to a softer market, their interaction provides a much clearer indication of how rapidly conditions are changing. This relationship is captured by the sales-to-listings ratio shown in Figure 5, which measures the proportion of available properties sold each week and acts as a real-time indicator of the balance between supply and demand.
The ratio declined again last week, falling from 13 per cent to just 11 per cent and reaching its lowest meaningful level in several years. In practical terms, an 11 per cent sales-to-listings ratio means that only about 1 in every 9 properties listed for sale are sold each week. Earlier this year, the ratio was closer to 35 per cent, implying that approximately 1 in every 3 properties listed for sale was selling each week. Relative to those earlier conditions, the market’s ability to absorb available stock has now fallen by almost 70 per cent, highlighting how sharply demand has weakened relative to supply.
The falling ratio may also reflect a growing disconnect between buyers and sellers. Many sellers may still be anchored to the market conditions of late 2025 and early 2026, when strong competition among buyers often led to multiple offers and rapid price increases. By contrast, buyers are now facing reduced affordability, while higher interest rates are constraining borrowing capacity. At the same time, the fear of missing out (FOMO) that characterised Perth’s market over the past two years has largely disappeared, replaced by greater caution and lower confidence.
This shift in sentiment is evident in both the sales and listings data. As the number of transactions declines and the stock of properties available for sale continues to increase, buyers have more choice and less urgency to make purchasing decisions. The result is a widening gap between seller expectations and buyer capacity, which initially reduces transaction volumes before eventually placing downward pressure on price growth.
A less publicised development that may influence Perth’s rental market over the coming months is the conclusion of the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS). Introduced by the Federal Government in 2008, the scheme was designed to encourage the construction of affordable rental housing by providing investors with an annual financial incentive in exchange for renting dwellings to eligible low- and moderate-income households at least 20 per cent below market rent. The incentive was available for a maximum of 10 years, meaning that dwellings have been gradually leaving the scheme as their individual incentive periods expire. Funding for new NRAS allocations ceased in 2015, and all remaining dwellings are scheduled to exit the scheme by 30 June 2026.
At its peak, NRAS supported more than 35,000 affordable rental dwellings across Australia (approximately 3,700 in WA) and was an important component of the nation’s affordable housing system. However, because no new dwellings have entered the scheme for more than a decade, the NRAS housing stock has been steadily declining. As shown in Table 1, only 4,591 dwellings remain nationally, with Western Australia accounting for approximately one-third of the total. Once these dwellings exit the scheme, landlords will no longer receive the associated government incentive, and properties will generally revert to standard private rental arrangements.
For Perth, the significance of this change lies primarily in the loss of discounted rental accommodation rather than the loss of housing stock itself. Many NRAS properties have been rented at around 20 per cent below prevailing market rents for several years. Once the scheme ends, landlords will no longer receive the associated government incentive and may seek to move rents closer to market levels. Some investors may also decide that the scheme’s expiry provides an appropriate time to sell, particularly after more than a decade of ownership and following the strong capital growth in Perth over recent years. While many of these properties are likely to remain in the rental market, any increase in investor sales could further reduce rental supply if owner-occupiers purchase dwellings.
As a result, the end of NRAS has the potential to affect Perth’s rental market through two channels. First, the supply of discounted rental accommodation will decline as properties transition to standard market rents. This distinction is important because affordability, rather than the absolute number of dwellings, is often the binding constraint for lower-income households. Consequently, even if the total number of rental dwellings remains largely unchanged, the effective supply of affordable rental housing will fall, increasing competition for the remaining pool of lower-cost properties. Second, if some investors choose to sell to owner-occupiers, the total stock of rental housing may also decline. In a market already characterised by extremely low vacancy rates, strong population growth and limited rental availability, both mechanisms are likely to place additional pressure on lower-income households and may further push rents upward over the remainder of 2026.
The implications of the NRAS expiry become even clearer when viewed through the lens of the widely used 30:40 housing affordability measure. Under this framework, a household is considered to be in housing stress if it falls within the bottom 40 per cent of the income distribution and spends more than 30 per cent of its income on housing costs. With Perth’s median weekly rent now reaching approximately $750, a household would require a gross income of around $130,000 per year to remain below the 30 per cent affordability threshold. This is substantially higher than the incomes of many households that NRAS was originally intended to support.
Consequently, the expiry of NRAS, proposed changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, and an already undersupplied rental market characterised by rising rents and low vacancy rates could create a trifecta of pressures on rental affordability. While each factor alone may place upward pressure on rents, their combined effect could further reduce the availability of affordable rental housing and increase housing stress among lower-income households across Perth.
Overall, Perth’s housing market is becoming increasingly balanced as listings rise, sales soften, and price growth moderates from the extraordinary levels recorded earlier in the year. However, while conditions may be improving for buyers, ongoing housing undersupply and growing pressures in the rental market suggest affordability will remain one of Perth’s most significant housing challenges through the remainder of 2026.
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Reproduced with permission from:
Ryan Brierty,
in house economist from Michael Keil @ michaelkeil.com
Disclaimer: This publication is intended to provide general information only. It does not take into account the specific objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular person. You should consider the appropriateness of this information in relation to your personal circumstances before making any investment decision. While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, no warranty is given as to its correctness, completeness, or reliability.
