Spring 2026 Listings Are Down, Not Up in Australia
By Matt Basedow
If your spring pitch to sellers assumes a wall of competing listings is about to hit the market, you're pitching off last year's script.
The data says the opposite is happening.
Fresh Cotality figures released in the last week of August show new listings running below average almost everywhere except Adelaide. That changes the conversation you should be having with sellers this month, and it changes how you should be positioning every listing you actually win.
The Numbers Don't Match the "Spring Rush" Story
In the four weeks to 23 August 2026, just over 33,000 properties were newly listed for sale nationally. That's 8.2% below the five-year average and 2% below the same period last year, according to Cotality data reported by Real Estate Business.
Break it down by city and the gap is even more specific:
Sydney: new listings down 14% on the five-year average
Melbourne: down more than 9%
Brisbane: down 5%
Adelaide: up around 4%, the one clear outlier
Adelaide aside, this isn't a soft dip. It's most of the country's new listing flow running meaningfully thinner than normal, right when everyone expects it to be picking up.
"This spring could prove to be cooler than the past, with potential vendors assessing a market with falling values, cautious and constrained buyers and an uncertain rates outlook."
Gerard Burg, Cotality head of research, via Real Estate Business
Here's the twist worth knowing before you talk to a seller: total advertised stock nationally actually sat 1.7% above the five-year average over the same four weeks, at just over 137,000 properties, per Cotality data cited by CommBank Newsroom.
That's not fresh supply flooding in. It's existing listings sitting on the market longer because fewer buyers are moving on them. Total stock looks fine on the surface. The flow of new opportunities underneath it doesn't.
Why Sellers Are Sitting on Their Hands
Sellers aren't holding back for no reason.
Prices are going backwards in an estimated 93% of Australian suburbs, according to Cotality's Home Value Index, as reported by API Magazine.
When almost every suburb is showing softer values, a seller who doesn't have to move this month is choosing to wait for a clearer signal on rates before testing the market.
Melbourne has its own added wrinkle. Victoria's new reserve price disclosure rule kicks in on October 1, and agents are already telling Cohen Handler to expect a busier than usual September for auction stock, followed by a noticeably thinner October. Vendors who were going to list this spring anyway are compressing their timelines to get ahead of the rule change, not adding extra volume to the market.
Put it together and you get a spring where buyers hold more leverage than usual, and sellers know it. Plenty of agencies are already framing it this way: buyers in the driver's seat, sellers hitting the brakes.
What Fewer Listings Actually Means for Competition
Here's where most agents get the read wrong. Fewer listings doesn't mean less competition. It means the competition moves to a different stage.
With fewer sellers actually deciding to list, every one of them is being courted harder at the pitch. You're not just competing with other listings for buyer attention anymore, you're competing with more agents than usual for the right to list the property at all.
And once you win it, the pressure doesn't ease off. Buyers who are cautious and constrained, as Cotality puts it, spend longer scrutinising each of the fewer live listings they see. Imagine a buyer scrolling through half the usual number of new listings in their suburb this week. They're not skimming past yours in eight seconds. They're actually looking at it, which means a flat, phone-shot photo gallery gets noticed for exactly the wrong reasons.
In a normal spring, a mediocre listing gets lost in the noise. In a thin spring, it gets remembered, just not the way you want.
This is exactly the environment where a professional-looking video listing earns its keep. When a seller is nervous about testing a softer market, and a buyer has fewer options to compare, the presentation of the one listing in front of them carries more weight than usual. That's the gap PropertyVideos.ai is built to close: turning a standard photo set into a branded, voiced-over video in minutes, so the listing looks like it was worth the seller's while to list at all.
How to Win More Listings in a Low-Supply Spring
Lead your pitch with the actual numbers. Show the seller their suburb's real five-year comparison, not a generic "spring is a great time to sell" line. Sellers who see falling values and thinner listing volumes want to know their agent understands the market they're actually in.
Get video live in the first 48 hours. With fewer new listings appearing each week, buyers spend longer on each one. The first impression has to hold up to closer inspection, not just a quick scroll.
Compress your own campaign timeline. Fewer new listings behind you means less natural urgency for buyers to act quickly. Recreate that urgency with a tighter, clearly communicated sale timeline rather than an open-ended one.
Price against the current trend, not last year's comparable sales. In a market where most suburbs are seeing values ease, pricing off outdated comparables is the fastest way to sit on the market and become one more piece of ageing stock.
Common Questions About This Spring's Market
Are listings actually down in 2026?
Yes. National new listings ran 8.2% below the five-year average in the four weeks to 23 August 2026, with Sydney down 14% and Melbourne down more than 9%, according to Cotality data reported by Real Estate Business. Adelaide is the only capital running above its average.
Is spring 2026 a buyer's or seller's market?
Current data points to buyers holding more leverage than usual. Values are falling in an estimated 93% of suburbs and new listings are below average, which gives buyers more time and choice per property even though total advertised stock looks steady on paper.
Will listings pick up later in spring?
Some markets may see a short-term bump. Melbourne agents expect a busier September ahead of Victoria's October 1 reserve price disclosure rule, followed by a thinner October. Whether the broader national trend lifts depends heavily on the direction of interest rates over the next few months.
The Bottom Line
The "spring rush" story assumes sellers show up in force every September. This year, the data says they haven't, and the reasons why (falling values, rate uncertainty, cautious buyers) aren't going away overnight.
That doesn't make this a bad spring to be an agent. It makes it a spring where winning the listing matters more than ever, and where the listing you do win has to work harder for a seller who's watching closely and buyers who aren't in a rush. The agents who treat every listing like it's the only one worth looking at this month are the ones who'll come out of this spring ahead.