24700 – APN Investment Conditions Index™

The APN Investment Conditions Index™ reports the state of six conditions bearing on new residential investment nationally, and publishes two readings of them. The intensity reading measures how far conditions sit from their historical centre, without regard to whether a condition favours investment or weighs against it. The signed reading applies a ratified direction to each component — a higher cost of capital counts against, a stronger approvals flow counts for — and reports the balance.

This is a national time-series composite, not a geographic index — only its current reading is shown here. The index carries 242 quarters of composed history behind that reading.

The conditions lean slightly for investment: the signed reading is 53.4, from an average of +0.046 standard deviations across the six signed branches. Signed, Demographic Demand Conditions reads highest of the six at 84.7, with Price & Affordability Conditions next at 80.2, ahead of Supply Pipeline Conditions at 60.7 and Financing & Volatility Conditions at 48.3. Sentiment & Behavioural Conditions reads 19.6, and Policy & Regulatory Conditions reads lowest at 0.0: both of its components count against investment, and its March quarter 2026 reading equals its December quarter 2025 reading, the highest of its 45 full-coverage quarters. On intensity, Supply Pipeline Conditions reads highest at 98.4, ahead of Policy & Regulatory Conditions at 97.7, Price & Affordability Conditions at 94.7 and Demographic Demand Conditions at 84.7; Financing & Volatility Conditions reads 69.0, above the middle of its own history, and Sentiment & Behavioural Conditions reads lowest at 13.7. Supply Pipeline Conditions is read at the June quarter 2026, when the stock of dwellings under construction and the value of work yet to be done both reached the highest levels of their records. Price & Affordability Conditions is also read at the June quarter 2026, and is lower than a quarter earlier because growth in dwelling prices slowed. Demographic Demand Conditions is read at the March quarter, when both of its inputs peak seasonally; against earlier March quarters it is the lowest reading since 2021. One of the six, Price & Affordability Conditions, carries too little full-coverage history for an empirical ranking and publishes an indicative position instead.

Both index positions are lower than at the previous recomputation, by 2.3 points on intensity and 2.6 signed. Part of that is the lower Price & Affordability reading. The larger part is the variance correction: with twelve quarters of full coverage, that branch’s relationship with three other branches is now estimated from data, which raised the correction from 0.48 to 0.53 on intensity and from 0.45 to 0.54 on the signed reading. On the earlier corrections the two positions would have read 92.3 and 54.1.

Each branch is shown over time on one shared scale, at its own latest quarter of full component coverage. The index headline is the unweighted mean of the six current readings, so it blends quarters; the index line beneath shows how the index itself has moved in the quarters in which all six branches carry a reading.

Every card uses the same scale, −4σ to +4σ, so the six branches can be compared directly. Positions are the intensity readings. Five branches rank empirically against their own full-coverage history; Price & Affordability Conditions (24760) holds fewer than 20 full-coverage quarters, so its position is indicative and its band is the model range. Policy & Regulatory Conditions (24720) reads the same in the December quarter 2025 and the March quarter 2026, because both of its components hold their latest published value until the next publication.

• Mean-of-components construction — the index is the equal-weighted mean of its six component branches, each of which is itself the equal-weighted mean of its own components.
• Cross-quarter blending — each component is read at its own most recent full-coverage quarter: four (24710/24740/24750/24760) reference Q2 2026 and two (24720/24730) reference Q1 2026. Components are not all as-of the same calendar quarter, by design.
• Seasonal pattern in the demographic inputs — net overseas migration and population growth enter as published by the ABS, without seasonal adjustment, and both run highest in the March quarter. Demographic Demand Conditions (24730) is read at the March quarter 2026 and is best compared with earlier March quarters, against which it is the lowest reading since 2021.
• Indicative positions on one component and on the index — Price & Affordability Conditions carries 11 full-coverage quarters, and the index 11 joint quarters (September 2023 to March 2026), below the twenty-quarter floor at which empirical ranking begins. Each graduates automatically at 20 quarters.

The series is distilled across six tiers, each covering the whole node at escalating depth. Start at the tier that matches your background; each page links to the next.