The median house sold in Sydney in the June quarter of 2026 for $1,487,600, according to the ABS’s preliminary figures. Brisbane was second among the capitals at $1,155,000, ahead of Canberra, Perth and Adelaide. Melbourne, at $850,000, was sixth of eight: its median house price is 2.4% higher than five years ago, against 87.0% in Perth, 83.3% in Brisbane and 77.3% in Adelaide. Sydney was the only capital where the median house sold for less than a year earlier.
ABS medians of homes sold in the quarter. The June quarter 2026 figures are preliminary and will be revised.
What these prices are
These are median sale prices: the middle price of the homes that changed hands in a quarter, as recorded by state and territory land titles and Valuers-General offices and by real estate agents, supplied to the ABS by CoreLogic and compiled by the ABS. They differ from the ABS mean dwelling price, which estimates the average value of every home whether or not it sold. A median moves with the mix of homes sold as well as with values, so a quarter in which more expensive homes sell will show a higher median even if no home is worth more.
The ABS publishes two medians for each capital city and for the rest of each state. An established house is a detached dwelling on its own block, whatever its age. An attached dwelling shares a wall, floor or ceiling with another: flats, units, townhouses, terraces and semi-detached houses. This article calls them houses and units. Capital cities are the ABS’s greater capital city areas.
The latest quarter is preliminary. Sales reach the ABS over several months, and the June quarter figures rest on the sales recorded so far: 8,932 house sales in Sydney, against 13,648 now recorded for the June quarter of 2025. The ABS warns that revisions can be substantial in the quarter after first release.
Houses in the capitals
Median price of houses sold, capital cities, June quarter 2026
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Total Value of Dwellings, June quarter 2026, Table 2. $ thousand, median price of established house transfers, June quarter 2026, with the change on the June quarter 2025. June quarter 2026 figures are preliminary.
Sydney’s median house price of $1,487,600 was 2.1% lower than a year earlier, and below the $1,570,000 recorded for the December quarter of 2025, the highest in the series. In every other capital the median was higher than a year before: by 21.4% in Darwin, 18.8% in Brisbane and in Perth, and 13.2% in Adelaide, and by smaller amounts in Hobart (4.9%), Canberra (3.0%) and Melbourne (1.2%).
Five years that reordered the capitals
Change in the median house price, June quarter 2021 to June quarter 2026, capital cities
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Total Value of Dwellings, June quarter 2026, Table 2. Change in the median price of established house transfers between the June quarters of 2021 and 2026, with the change for attached dwellings. June quarter 2026 figures are preliminary.
In the June quarter of 2021 Melbourne had the third-highest median house price of the capitals, after Sydney and Canberra. Five years later it has the sixth. Its median has risen 2.4% in that time, and is below the $940,000 of the December quarter of 2021, its highest. Over the same five years the median rose 87.0% in Perth, 83.3% in Brisbane and 77.3% in Adelaide, and all three passed Melbourne. Hobart and Canberra, like Melbourne, recorded their highest medians in 2021–22.
Median house price: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth
APN chart based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Total Value of Dwellings, June quarter 2026, Table 2. $ thousand, median price of established house transfers, March quarter 2011 to June quarter 2026, original. The latest quarters are open to revision.
The chart shows how recent the change is. From mid-2015 to 2023 Melbourne’s median sat above Brisbane’s and Perth’s in every quarter; in the four years before that Perth’s was often level with it or above it. Brisbane’s passed Melbourne’s in the March quarter of 2024 and Perth’s passed it again in the June quarter of 2025, and each has stayed above it since.
Units
Median price of units sold, capital cities, June quarter 2026
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Total Value of Dwellings, June quarter 2026, Table 2. $ thousand, median price of attached dwelling transfers, June quarter 2026, with the change on the June quarter 2025. June quarter 2026 figures are preliminary.
Unit medians are closer together than house medians. Sydney ($840,000) and Brisbane ($830,100) were nearly level, followed by Perth and Adelaide. Brisbane’s unit median has risen 97.0% in five years. Melbourne’s, at $590,000, is 9.0% lower than in June 2021, the only capital where units sold for less than five years ago. In Sydney the median unit sold for 56% of the median house price; in Hobart, 80%.
Outside the capitals
| Median house | Year | Five years | Median unit | Year | Five years | House sales in the quarter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $1,487,600 | −2.1% | +23.3% | $840,000 | +1.2% | +7.0% | 8,932 |
| Rest of New South Wales | $810,000 | +5.1% | +37.3% | $710,000 | +6.0% | +34.2% | 11,039 |
| Melbourne | $850,000 | +1.2% | +2.4% | $590,000 | −2.2% | −9.0% | 11,414 |
| Rest of Victoria | $625,000 | +8.7% | +30.6% | $467,800 | +7.3% | +29.9% | 5,845 |
| Brisbane | $1,155,000 | +18.8% | +83.3% | $830,100 | +17.2% | +97.0% | 6,559 |
| Rest of Queensland | $800,000 | +10.1% | +66.7% | $805,000 | +11.8% | +75.0% | 8,979 |
| Adelaide | $975,000 | +13.2% | +77.3% | $725,000 | +9.8% | +74.7% | 4,270 |
| Rest of South Australia | $584,500 | +15.7% | +88.5% | $378,800 | +20.9% | +76.2% | 1,542 |
| Perth | $1,010,000 | +18.8% | +87.0% | $730,000 | +21.7% | +73.8% | 5,154 |
| Rest of Western Australia | $665,000 | +20.9% | +75.5% | $520,000 | +26.8% | +75.1% | 1,529 |
| Hobart | $750,000 | +4.9% | +19.0% | $600,000 | +7.9% | +19.4% | 473 |
| Rest of Tasmania | $625,000 | +13.6% | +48.8% | $500,000 | +11.1% | +38.9% | 772 |
| Darwin | $752,500 | +21.4% | +33.2% | $445,500 | +17.1% | +18.8% | 360 |
| Rest of the Northern Territory | $450,000 | +1.3% | −2.2% | $340,000 | +14.3% | +13.3% | 132 |
| Canberra | $1,030,000 | +3.0% | +13.8% | $615,000 | +1.7% | +13.5% | 1,061 |
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Total Value of Dwellings, June quarter 2026, Table 2. Median prices of established house transfers and attached dwelling transfers, June quarter 2026 (preliminary), with changes on the June quarters of 2025 and 2021, and the number of house transfers recorded so far for the quarter.
Outside the capitals the highest house medians were in the rest of New South Wales ($810,000) and the rest of Queensland ($800,000), both above Hobart and Darwin and close to Melbourne. Among them the largest rise over the year was in the rest of Western Australia (20.9%). The rest of Queensland is the one region where the median unit ($805,000) sold for more than the median house. Three markets have fewer than 500 house sales recorded for the quarter, Hobart, Darwin and the rest of the Northern Territory, and their medians move more from quarter to quarter for that reason.
What this does not show
A median describes the homes that sold, not the homes that exist, and the two can differ: when dearer suburbs or larger homes make up more of a quarter’s sales, the median rises without any home gaining value. The June quarter figures are preliminary: across the fifteen regions, the house sales recorded so far are 73% of the number now recorded for the June quarter of 2025. The medians are not adjusted for the size, age or location of homes within each city, and are in current dollars. A city-wide median says little about any one suburb. Nothing here indicates where prices will go next.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: June quarter 2026) ‘Table 2. Median Price and Number of Transfers (Capital City and Rest of State)’ [data set], Total Value of Dwellings, Australia [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/total-value-dwellings/jun-quarter-2026], accessed 10 October 2026.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: June quarter 2026) Total Value of Dwellings methodology [https://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/total-value-dwellings-methodology/jun-quarter-2026], ABS Website, accessed 10 October 2026.
ABS material is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Calculations, standardisations and index readings are APN’s and are not attributable to the ABS.
Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
