National home prices fell 0.3% in October, marking a seventh consecutive monthly decline, according to the latest PropTrack Home Price Index Report. Sydney has now overtaken Melbourne as the capital with the deepest correction, down 6.7% from its November 2025 peak compared with Melbourne's 6.1% retreat. Adelaide posted the largest single-month fall of any capital at 0.6%, with Brisbane and Perth both sliding roughly 6% below their respective March peaks.
Seven Months of Decline Rewrite the National Price Floor
PropTrack's data shows national prices are now 4.3% below their March peak and 1.9% lower year-on-year, with combined capital city prices down 5.4% from peak and 3.7% lower annually. The correction has moved quickly — more than 4% shaved off national values inside seven months, a pace PropTrack's Senior Economist Eleanor Creagh described as evidence that "higher borrowing costs and stretched affordability are increasingly constraining purchasing power."
For broader market context, see WealthWatchPro macro and interest rate analysis.
The pattern is uneven by asset type and geography. National house prices fell 0.3% in October and sit 4.6% below peak, while units have held up better, down just 3.0% from peak on a 0.1% monthly fall. Regional markets are also outperforming the capitals, falling only 0.1% in October and remaining 3.1% higher year-on-year, against a 3.7% annual decline across the combined capitals. REAStats' own national snapshot puts the current median at $818,000 with average days on market sitting at 36 — a timeframe that is stretching as spring listings fail to convert into the usual seasonal lift in sales activity.
Sydney Overtakes Melbourne as the Deepest Correction
Sydney prices fell 0.4% in October, pushing the city 6.7% below its November 2025 peak and 6.6% lower than a year ago. Melbourne's monthly fall was more modest at 0.1%, leaving it 6.1% below its October 2025 peak. The distinction matters for vendors and agents running spring campaigns: Melbourne remains the only capital where prices sit below their five-year-ago level, down 3.5%, a longer period of underperformance even as its recent monthly decline has slowed relative to Sydney's.
REAStats' suburb-level data illustrates how this plays out at the coalface. Randwick in Sydney's east still clears 73.5% of auction listings at a $2,400,000 median with 23 days on market — a sign that premium, well-located stock continues to transact even as the city-wide correction deepens. Compare that with Dandenong in Melbourne's south-east, where the median sits at $680,000, annual growth has slowed to 2.3%, and homes are taking 40 days to sell. The gap between prestige and entry-level markets within the same capital is widening as borrowing capacity becomes the binding constraint on demand.
Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth: Previously Resilient Markets Crack Fastest
According to PropTrack, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth are undergoing the sharpest reversals of any capitals, having posted five-year growth of 54.6%, 61.4% and 74.8% respectively. Adelaide's October fall of 0.6% was the largest of any capital, extending a five-month slide to 3.4% below its May peak, despite remaining 3.1% higher than a year earlier. Brisbane fell 0.4% in October, its seventh straight monthly decline, now 5.8% below peak. Perth slipped 0.3%, also its seventh consecutive fall, sitting 5.7% below peak.
Creagh's analysis frames the recent pace in annualised terms: over the latest three months, prices have fallen at an annualised rate of approximately 10% in Adelaide, 9.5% in Brisbane and 8.1% in Perth. These are measures of momentum rather than forecasts, but they show how quickly conditions have turned in markets that led the national growth cycle. West End in Brisbane's inner south still posted 8.8% annual growth with a 62% clearance rate on REAStats' data, and Indooroopilly held 8.5% annual growth at a $1,380,000 median — evidence that select Queensland pockets are decoupling from the broader capital-wide pullback even as the headline PropTrack numbers soften.
Western Australia's Nedlands recorded 15% annual growth and a 15-day median sales cycle, against Victoria's Dandenong at 2.3% growth and 40 days on market — a 25-day gap that captures the two-speed nature of Australia's current downturn.
Suburb-Level Divergence Confirms a Two-Speed Market
South Perth's REAStats figures reinforce the WA story: 13.8% annual growth, a 17-day sales cycle and a 63.5% clearance rate, despite Perth's citywide PropTrack fall of 0.3% in October. Nedlands sits even further ahead at 15% annual growth with a $2,200,000 median and the fastest sales cycle in the national dataset at 15 days. At the other end, Port Macquarie on the NSW mid-north coast is clearing just 46% of auction listings with a 48-day average sales cycle — a 33-day gap against Nedlands that agents in regional NSW are having to actively manage through vendor expectation-setting rather than campaign timing alone.
This divergence matters for how agents price and position campaigns this spring. Toorak's 72% clearance rate and 23-day sales cycle at a $2.8 million median show Melbourne's prestige tier holding firm even as the broader capital records its longest period of underperformance. Maroochydore's 8.5% annual growth and 54% clearance rate suggest Queensland's lifestyle corridor is tracking closer to WA's trajectory than Victoria's. The PropTrack correction is real at the national level, but it is not applying evenly, and agents relying on citywide averages risk mispricing both ends of the market.
Background: Reading Clearance Rates and Cycle Timing in a Downturn
Understanding where a given suburb sits within this correction requires more than a single median figure. REAStats' Auction Clearance Rates Explained guide breaks down why a 73.5% clearance rate in Randwick signals a fundamentally different demand environment than a 46% rate in Port Macquarie, even when both sit within the same national downturn. The Property Cycle Timing framework is also relevant here — PropTrack's own data shows leading indicators like days on market and clearance rates typically move two to six months ahead of price direction, which is consistent with the softer auction conditions Creagh flagged well before October's price falls were confirmed.
For vendors weighing campaign structure in this market, the Sole Agency vs Open Listing comparison is worth reviewing, since data consistently shows sole agency campaigns achieving faster sales and stronger prices even in softer conditions. Broader context on medians, clearance rates and vacancy trends sits in REAStats' Australian Property Market Statistics 2025 guide.
With the RBA cash rate sitting at 4.60% following four increases in 2026, and PropTrack flagging the prospect of a further rate rise, agents and vendors should treat the next two reporting cycles as the test of whether Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth stabilise or continue the annualised 8–10% pace of decline Creagh identified. Buyers in WA corridors like Nedlands and South Perth retain genuine leverage against fast-clearing, undersupplied stock, while vendors in NSW regional markets and Victoria's outer suburbs face longer campaigns and should price toward realistic clearance expectations rather than last year's comparable sales. The data points to a market correcting unevenly rather than uniformly, and pricing strategy now needs to reflect suburb-level clearance and days-on-market figures over citywide headlines.
