According to REA Group, new data released on 23 October 2026 shows approved foreign investment in Australian residential real estate totalled $4.7 billion in 2025-26, concentrated among a handful of buyer nationalities and led by Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese investors. The figure lands at a moment when listing volumes and days-on-market data across REAStats' tracked suburbs are splitting wider than at any point this cycle — South Perth is clearing stock in 17 days while Port Macquarie sits at 48. That gap is not noise; it is the clearest signal yet of where capital, foreign and domestic, is actually flowing.
Foreign Capital Chases Fast-Turnover Stock
The REA Group data arrives against a backdrop of auction clearance and turnover figures that already show which markets are absorbing stock quickest. South Perth, with a median of $1.45 million, an annual growth rate of 13.8% and a median days-on-market of just 17, sits at the fast end of the national spectrum. Nedlands, also in Western Australia, is even tighter — 15 days on market against 15% annual growth and a $2.2 million median. These are precisely the kind of established, amenity-rich inner suburbs that tend to attract offshore capital alongside local upgraders.
The Days-on-Market Divide Across States
State-level comparisons sharpen the picture. Western Australian suburbs in the REAStats dataset average well under three weeks on market — South Perth at 17 days, Nedlands at 15, Fremantle at 25 — while clearance rates sit between 54.6% and 65.5%. Victorian prestige pockets tell a different story: Toorak clears in 23 days at a 72% clearance rate, and Kew in 24 days at 71%, suggesting Melbourne's top tier is still moving with confidence even as broader Victorian suburbs like Dandenong (40 days, 56% clearance) and Reservoir (32 days, 62% clearance) show more friction in the middle market.
NSW presents the widest internal spread in the data. Kirribilli clears in 24 days at a 72.5% clearance rate, and Surry Hills in 23 days at 73% — both inner-Sydney markets behaving like WA's tightest suburbs. But Liverpool (38 days), Penrith (35 days) and Port Macquarie (48 days) sit at the other extreme, all with clearance rates below 62%. Queensland's West End and Indooroopilly both sit around 22-23 days with clearance rates above 62%, closer in character to the fast-moving WA and inner-Sydney cohort than to NSW's regional lag.
Western Australian suburbs in the current dataset average 15-25 days on market with clearance rates above 54%, while regional NSW coastal markets such as Port Macquarie and Ballina sit at 45-48 days with clearance rates under 48% — a split of more than 30 days between the fastest and slowest tracked markets.
New Listing Volumes and the Perth Supply Pipeline
Days-on-market compression in WA suburbs is happening even as the state prepares for a meaningful expansion in future listing volume. As reported by Australian Property Forum, a $105 million upgrade to Perth's Subiaco Water Resource Recovery Facility is designed to unlock 60,000 new homes across the city's infill precincts over the next 25 years. That is a long runway, but it matters for how South Perth, Nedlands and Fremantle behave over coming cycles — infrastructure-enabled supply tends to arrive in waves, and when it does, days-on-market figures in adjoining suburbs typically widen before stabilising as buyers gain more choice.
In the near term, though, the imbalance between buyer demand — domestic and foreign — and available stock is what is compressing WA's turnover times. Nationally, the foreign buyer data compounds an affordability conversation already running hot; REA Group separately reported this week on Australians citing cost-of-living pressure as a reason to leave the country altogether. Fast-clearing, foreign-capital-attractive suburbs sitting alongside a domestic affordability exodus narrative is not a coincidence — it is two sides of the same supply-demand equation, and vendors in tight markets are the ones currently holding the pricing power.
Background: Property Returns in Context
Foreign capital inflows and days-on-market compression need to be read against the broader return profile of residential property relative to other asset classes. As outlined in Property vs Other Investments for Australians, residential real estate has delivered 7-9% annual returns over three decades and represents 60% of Australian household wealth — a scale that helps explain why both domestic and offshore buyers keep competing hardest for the same fast-turnover suburbs rather than spreading into slower regional markets.
That competition is also playing out against a tightening rate environment. The RBA's cash rate sits at 4.60%, and broader macro and interest rate market analysis shows how borrowing costs at this level are reshaping which buyers can act quickly versus which are stuck waiting out financing approval — a factor that disproportionately slows down regional and middle-ring markets where finance-dependent buyers dominate, relative to cash-rich inner-metro and foreign purchasers.
For agents, the data points to a clear operating reality: listing strategy now needs to be suburb-specific rather than market-wide. Vendors in Port Macquarie, Ballina, Liverpool and Dandenong face materially longer campaigns and should price and market accordingly, while those in South Perth, Nedlands, Kirribilli and Surry Hills retain genuine pricing leverage despite the broader rate backdrop. Buyers chasing fast-clearing stock should expect limited negotiating room, while those targeting the 38-48 day tier have more scope to test vendor resolve — particularly as WA's longer-term supply pipeline begins to reshape the balance over the next several years.