Why this red-hot capital city is set to lead the market in 2026

It's the fastest growing capital city of the past 12 months and new forecasts show it's set to lead home prices again in 2026. Real estate agents on the ground say there's one big reason for it.

Despite being one of the most isolated capital cities in the world, Perth's property market is leading Australia when it comes to property price growth.
Home prices have jumped 15.5% over the year to November to a median $930,000, PropTrack data shows, and have almost doubled in the past five years.
Along with Brisbane, the latest realestate.com.au Property Outlook Report predicts Perth will continue to lead the market in the year ahead, with prices in both capital cities tipped to rise between 7-10% in 2026.
Anne Flaherty, senior economist at realestate.com.au and co-author of the report alongside Angus Moore and Eleanor Creagh, said population inflows, very tight rental conditions and an undersupply of new housing will continue to put upward pressure on prices.
"What we're seeing in [Brisbane and Perth] is that the rate at which new homes are being built is not keeping up with the rate at which the population is rising. These were also the fastest performing markets in 2025 and that momentum is likely to continue into next year."
"The most probable path is for Perth to keep outperforming the other capitals, but with price growth stepping down from the exceptionally strong pace recorded in 2024 and 2025," Ms Flaherty said.
PropTrack data shows the top ten best performing regions of the past 12 months were all located in Queensland and Western Australia.
Perth real estate agent and director of Haiven Property, Sean Hughes, said while there was no doubt Perth’s property market had not cooled, it was not “all beer and skittles” with some properties taking longer to sell.
“I just don't see this being a market where people are buying anything and everything just for the sake of it,” Mr Hughes told realestate.com.au
“I think that if you have a very generic four by two family home in Carine, for instance at $1.5 million you should expect to have the experience - which a lot of the Perth market is in – where they’ll be hordes of people lining up and 16 offers in the first weekend.”
However, more bespoke or unique properties will take longer to sell, he said.
“I suppose I see the Perth market is still quite two speed. Basically, one is a white hot pace, like you are getting a speeding fine,” he said.
“The other is that you can speed between the speed bumps, but at some point you've got to go 50km.”

Low listings a key factor

According to PropTrack, the number of active listings in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide is down around 45% from pre-pandemic levels - a key factor behind the outperformance of these cities in recent years.Real Estate Institute of WA President Suzanne Brown said price increases were likely to continue as long as demand was high and listings remained at or near record lows.“We have continuing population growth, we have new home buyers entering the market due to the 5% deposit under the Home Guarantee Scheme; and we simply do not have the housing stock to meet the demand,” she said.“People are not listing their homes due to concerns about securing a new place to live and new home completions are not meeting pent up demand.”Ray White Whiteman & Associates Mirrabooka sales associate Justin Merendino said he was averaging a seven day turnaround from listing a home to it going under offer.With that scenario being the trend all through 2025, Mr Merendino said he could not see it changing anytime soon.“The only way it will go down and longer days on market is more stock. How do we get more stock?” he said“We've got to build more because you're giving people more choice. I'd love every house to go on the market. The problem is people are scared to sell.”With a lack of choice, Mr Merendino said people wanting to upgrade or downsize were stuck, and looking ahead into 2026 he expected conditions to remain the same.Despite a huge buyer pool, Mr Merendino said he had a strict policy of not selling homes off-market.“As an agent and my sellers agree with me, buyers get annoyed because they haven't even been allowed to do a walk through the house if you do off-market,” he said.“You close the whole market for the seller, you close the market for the buyer. Why would we do it in the market of 3000? In 15,000 maybe because everyone's got choice, but at 3000 there's not enough choice.”Xceed Real Estate chief operating officer Jonathan Marlow said due to the historic low levels of listings, off-market sales were at the highest he had ever seen.“It's very hard to argue against it for every deal,” he said. “What happens is you've got an opportunity that comes to market and they're able to get four or five offers off-market."As a result, he said off-market sales have created a “lack of visibility” in the marketplace which was causing a significant reluctance from sellers listing their homes, in turn fuelling the listings shortage.“So it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “We're not certain we can confidently say where the end to this is.”The areas leading the chargeWestern Australia and Queensland dominate the top ten price growth regions of the past year according to PropTrack, with Perth's North East recently overtaking Townsville to become the hottest SA4 region in the country.Prices in this pocket have risen 17.4% over the year to November.SA4 regions are defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and generally have populations between 100,000 and 500,000 people.Mr Marlow said for his agency, buyer demand was strong for suburbs across the board.“Even the far reaches like Alkimos is really going crazy,” he said.“We are seeing areas like Balcatta, Stirling, Innaloo, Doubleview going nuts...Churchlands, then even Westminster and Balga – there isn’t really anything where I can sort of sit there and go ‘this is [happening more in] one particular suburb.”Mr Hughes said there has been good demand in pockets of Fremantle representing good value, as well as Applecross, and South Perth.“And then there's coastal stuff as well, through to Trigg and North Beach which have continued to be really quite hot over the last four or five years,” he said.Looking ahead, Mr Hughes said he did not believe conditions were going to greatly improve for buyers.“Unfortunately, I see that the market is going to continue to be strong,” he said.“I can't see a glut of listings coming to the market. I don't see the building rate and the amount of homes that are constructed easing.”