Spring auction clearance fell to 50.3% on 27 September, a 10-week low. CBA's 25bp pass-through takes effect 9 October

This article is general information only. It does not consider your personal circumstances and is not tax, credit or investment advice. Speak to a registered mortgage broker, tax agent or licensed property adviser before acting on any of the figures below.

The spring market stalled before the hike landed#

Spring is supposed to be the biggest selling window on the Australian property calendar. In most cycles the four weeks after the AFL Grand Final weekend bring the sharpest lift in stock, the deepest crowds and the highest preliminary clearance rates of the year. This spring is doing none of those things.

Cotality's weighted preliminary clearance rate across the combined capitals printed 50.3% on the weekend ending 27 September 2026. That is the lowest reading in 10 weeks and a 3.7 percentage point drop on the week before (Macrobusiness, 29 September 2026). It is also the softest spring opening of the current cycle, well below the comparable weekend in 2025 which cleared in the low 70s.

Only 1,428 homes went to auction across the combined capitals, 22.4% fewer than the previous week and 17.7% fewer than the same week a year earlier. The AFL Grand Final long weekend knocked Melbourne's auction footprint down to roughly 286 homes from the 913 called the prior week, which skews the comparison. Even without that distortion, the national result would have been the softest spring opening in four years.

The city-by-city read:

• Sydney: 790 auctions, preliminary clearance 53.6%, an eight-week low. Sydney has carried the national result for most of 2026, but it is now slipping back toward its winter average of 52.9%.
• Melbourne: 286 auctions, preliminary clearance 48.8%. The volumes are low because of the Grand Final, but a sub-50% print in the city that usually anchors the national result is a flag.
• Brisbane: preliminary clearance 42.6%, below 50% in 18 of the last 19 weeks. The Brisbane auction market is now a buyer's market on volume as well as price.
• Adelaide: preliminary clearance 39.3%, only the second time this year below 40%. Adelaide was the strongest capital city for most of 2024-25. The retreat has been fast.
• Canberra: preliminary clearance 53.8% on a small volume base.
• Perth: preliminary clearance 42.9% on 21 auctions.

That is the auction market from the Saturday before the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate.

The 29 September hike and the 9 October pass-through#

Three days later, on 29 September, the Reserve Bank Board lifted the cash rate 25 basis points to 4.60%, the fourth hike of 2026 and the highest cash rate since 2011 (RBA media release mr-26-27, 29 September 2026).

The Big 4 moved on the following day. Commonwealth Bank confirmed on 30 September that it will raise home loan variable rates by 0.25% p.a. effective 9 October 2026 (CBA Newsroom, 30 September 2026). ANZ, Westpac and NAB are each flagging full pass-through on comparable timelines, with effective dates clustered around 9 to 14 October.

For a landlord with a $750,000 investor loan on principal and interest, 25 years remaining, the arithmetic is familiar from the earlier hikes this year:

• A 25bp rise lifts repayments by roughly $114 a month, or about $1,368 a year before tax.
• On a variable rate near 6.75% after the pass-through lands, monthly P&I lifts to roughly $5,178.
• Across the four hikes of 2026, the cumulative lift on that loan is now about $454 extra a month, or $5,450 a year of P&I before tax, compared to the 1 January 2026 starting position.

Across the full landlord book, the aggregate increase in interest expense from the 2026 hiking cycle has already pulled roughly 7 percentage points out of borrowing capacity for new buyers and is now feeding directly into the pool of auction bidders.

Listings never arrived in the first place#

The weak clearance rate did not land in a vacuum. The listings side of the equation has been running below five-year norms for most of spring.

Cotality's four-week fresh listings count to late August came in at just over 33,000 properties, which is 8.2% below the five-year average and 2% below the same window in 2025 (CommBank Newsroom, August 2026). Sydney was leading the retreat at 14% below the five-year average, concentrated in the eastern suburbs, lower north shore and inner west. Melbourne sat at 9% below.

In most spring cycles the volume lift from new listings drives the preliminary clearance rate higher as competition between vendors forces more realistic reserve pricing and more sales under the hammer. In 2026 the vendor pool has thinned. Owner-occupiers in the top quartile have pulled their stock off the market or pushed sales out to 2027. Investor vendors, where they exist, are concentrated in the states where capital gains tax and negative gearing shifts from the May 2026 Federal Budget have changed the holding economics.

The result is a market with less supply, less demand and less clearing. Not a crash. A grind.

The September HVI confirms the direction#

Cotality's September 2026 Home Value Index, released on 1 October, is the final piece of the picture (Cotality HVI release, 1 October 2026).

• National dwelling values fell 1.1% in September, the sixth consecutive monthly fall.
• Values are now 5.2% below the March 2026 peak.
• Brisbane fell 1.5%, the sharpest capital drop and the first time this cycle it has outpaced Sydney.
• Sydney fell 1.4%, Melbourne 0.7%, Perth and Adelaide joined the retreat, and Darwin was the only capital to rise at +0.4%.
• Annual national growth is now flat (ABC News, 1 October 2026).

Commonwealth Bank's economics team updated its peak-to-trough forecast the day before the September print, moving to 13% in Sydney and 12% in Melbourne from the February and March peaks (CBA Newsroom, 30 September 2026). On the September HVI numbers, Sydney has already fallen close to 9% from its February peak and Melbourne is more than 7% off. CBA's view is that another roughly 4 to 5 percentage points of fall remains before the market finds a floor, assuming no further hikes beyond 4.60% and a mid-2027 easing cycle.

What this means for the landlord cash flow#

Three different time series are now pointing at the same reading.

Auctions: 50.3% national clearance, 42.6% in Brisbane, 39.3% in Adelaide. Sellers who need to transact are not getting their reserves at auction.

Values: six straight monthly falls on the Cotality national index, 5.2% below the March peak, with the upper quartile taking the biggest hits.

Cost of capital: Big 4 variable rates lifting another 25 basis points from 9 October, on top of a cumulative 100bp of hikes across 2026.

For a landlord with existing stock, the cash flow equation looks like this:

• Rents are still rising. Cotality's August gross national yield read 3.79%, the highest since September 2019, and the September HVI print will have ticked yields higher given rents continued to grow (Cotality Monthly Housing Chart Pack, September 2026). Annual rent growth is at 5.7%, and five-year rents are up 39% nationally.
• Costs are rising faster for leveraged holders. The October 9 pass-through adds roughly $114 a month per $750k of debt. On an interest-only investor variable now near 7.00%, the number is larger.
• Capital is compressing. Equity on March 2026 purchases is already thinner than the ATO's recent updates on capital gains eligibility rules would otherwise suggest.
• Negative gearing on established dwelling stock bought after 12 May 2026 begins its phase-out from 1 July 2027 under the May 2026 Federal Budget changes (covered in our 12 May 2026 cutoff explainer).

The landlord who bought at the March peak with a sub-10% deposit on an established dwelling is the archetype that CBA's economists and the RBA's October Financial Stability Review both flag as the thin-buffer group (RBA FSR Resilience chapter, October 2026). The landlord who has owned the same stock since 2019 is in a very different position: rents up almost 40% over five years, loan buffer deep, and the September fall is tapping a fraction of the gains they already banked.

What this means for the landlord entry case#

For buyers, the opposite side of this market read is where the opportunity sits.

A sub-50% preliminary clearance in Brisbane and Adelaide, with volumes rising into October as the Grand Final distortion washes out, is a market that rewards disciplined bidding. Reserves set in late 2025 and early 2026 are not going to transact. Expect:

• More properties passing in, which opens a post-auction negotiation window on a sole-bidder basis.
• Vendor concessions on settlement period, inclusions and finance clauses that were off the table 12 months ago.
• Lower comparable sales feeding into the next 90-day valuation window, which thins out mortgage insurer appetite but also compresses purchase prices.
• Specific postcode read-throughs: Brisbane inner north and south, Adelaide inner ring and Melbourne middle ring are the three segments where listings have risen on soft clearance, which is textbook buyer market territory.

The counter is finance. A 4.60% cash rate with 25bp of pass-through now live in October has already cut borrowing capacity by about 7 percentage points this year. The buyer pool is thinning. For a leveraged landlord, the right play is to pre-approve on current servicing calcs now, not wait for the November RBA meeting where ANZ still has a 25bp hike pencilled in and the other three majors have on hold.

The watch list between now and 11 November#

Four releases are going to decide whether the current spring softness becomes a 2026-27 downturn or a two-quarter wobble:

• October auction weekends: 4-5 October, 11-12 October, 18-19 October and 25-26 October 2026. Each one is the first full read of post-hike bidding behaviour. A clearance rate below 50% nationally into mid-October is the signal the market is pricing in a longer cycle.
• ABS Lending Indicators for August and September: next release 11 November 2026 (ABS schedule). The investor loan commitment numbers will tell whether the Big 4 pass-through has broken the investor return of H1 2026.
• PropTrack and Domain September HPIs: both land in early October and will be read alongside Cotality's print as a cross-check on the direction of travel. Any divergence narrows the uncertainty on where the floor is.
• The 10-11 November RBA meeting: ANZ is still the lone major holding a 25bp hike in its forecast. CBA, Westpac and NAB have the cash rate on hold at 4.60%. The outcome and the November Statement on Monetary Policy will set the base case for lenders' rate books through to the February 2027 decision.

Where Propkt fits#

If you own one or more investment properties in Australia and this is the first time you have mapped the full cash-flow effect of a 25bp hike through to your bottom line, the Propkt mortgage calculator is set up to do that in two minutes per property. For holding costs, insurance, rates and the full line-item expense picture, the expense tracker handles rent collection, outgoings and the tax categorisation your accountant actually wants to see at EOFY.

For a landlord navigating a market where the auction clearance read is 50%, the pass-through is weekly news and the FSR is naming your buffer in print, the one thing you can control is knowing what every property is actually earning you after rates, body corp, insurance, repairs and the extra $114 a month that lands on 9 October. That is what Propkt is built to do.