The Average Is Lying: Top End -3.2%, Bottom End +0.3%

▶ Watch the full video on YouTube: The Average Is Lying: Top End -3.2%, Bottom End +0.3% | Tuesday 4 August 2026

The Australian property market is not moving as one market right now. The headline average says values fell 0.7% in July, but the real story is a widening split between the top and bottom of the market — and that matters more for buyers and investors than the national number.

If you only read the average, you miss where prices are under pressure, where scarcity is still supporting values, and where the data is already telling you how to position your next purchase.

Australian property market: the average is hiding the split

The national property market fell 0.7% in July, the largest monthly fall since December 2022. But the bigger story is the quarterly split inside that national number:

• The top quarter of the market fell 3.2% over the three months to July
• The bottom quarter rose 0.3%
• That is a 3.5-point spread inside one “national” figure

Kotality’s own release says the decline in home values is “heavily weighted toward higher value properties”. In plain English: the most expensive part of the market is getting hit harder, while the affordable end is far more resilient.

Why the top end is falling harder in the Australian property market

The pressure points are clear:

• Three cash rate hikes this year
• Ongoing affordability and serviceability constraints
• Higher fuel costs
• Weak consumer confidence

These forces bite hardest where buyers are borrowing the most and stretching the furthest — typically the higher-value end of the market. At the affordable end, buyers are more often first home buyers or investors buying on yield, so the same pressure has less impact.

That is why a national average can be misleading. It can say “property fell” while hiding the fact that one segment is falling sharply and another is still holding up.

Sydney, Melbourne and Perth show the same pattern

The capital city figures reinforce the same message:

• Sydney down 1.4%
• Melbourne down 1.2%
• Perth up 0.1%

The most expensive markets are leading the declines, while Perth — the cheapest mainland capital of the big three — is still edging higher. The word “national” is doing a lot of work in the headline, because these markets are clearly not behaving the same way.

Listings are building, but sellers are slow to adjust

There is also a supply side signal worth watching. Total capital city stock is now 5.7% above the five-year average.

Kotality’s head of research says there is a mismatch between what sellers want and what buyers will pay. That matters because sellers are usually slower to adjust than buyers. For prepared buyers, that gap can be where value appears first.

What the suburb data says: Condon and Wondall

This is where averages really fall apart.

Condon, Townsville, QLD 4815

Ripehouse Advisory’s data puts Condon at the 100th percentile on our score and 33rd in the country.

The key numbers:

• Days on market over the last 90 days: 18.5 days
• Annual days on market: 67.5 days
• That means stock is selling 3.5 times faster than the annual average
• New supply in the last six months: 0
• Average sold price moved from $465,000 to $584,000 over two years
• That is about 26% growth

Even with quarterly sales volume falling, price growth continued. That is not a broad-based boom signal; it is a scarcity signal.

Wondall, Rockhampton, QLD 4700

Wondall is a different profile again.

• Our score: 99.56 nationally
• Short-term yield signal: 6.08% at the 97th percentile
• Days on market: 125
• Vacancy: 1.21%

The sale side is slow, but the rent side is doing the work. This is exactly why you cannot treat every suburb in the same way. Two locations can sit in the same broad market and still have completely different investment characteristics.

Why street-level data beats the suburb average

Even a suburb average can hide major differences. In Condon, street-level analysis changes the picture again:

• Sold price by street shows the true spread
• Rental yield by street shows where cash flow is strongest
• Owner occupier concentration helps explain which streets hold value better in softer markets
• Public and social housing concentration can explain why two houses in the same suburb trade hundreds of thousands apart

Four streets, four different answers. That is what the average hides.

The Ripehouse Advisory take

The lesson here is not to avoid property. It is to stop relying on a single national number and start buying with a framework that tells you which market you are actually in.

Right now, the data says the Australian property market is fragmented: the top end is under more pressure, the bottom end is holding up better, and local supply-demand conditions are creating very different outcomes from suburb to suburb.

That is exactly why investors and homebuyers need professional research, not headlines. At Ripehouse Advisory, we use suburb data, street-level signals and our internal research framework to separate real opportunity from noisy averages.