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While external factors such as the recent federal election reduced total listings in April, an industry expert has forecast that listing activity is primed for an upswing in the coming months.
Recent findings from SQM Research revealed that nationwide residential property listings declined by 3.6 per cent over April 2025, dropping to 242,435 properties.
The data showed that the outcome was driven by a decrease in listings across all major cities.
Sydney and Canberra recorded the largest monthly drop of 7 per cent each, which resulted in only 32,241 and 4,359 properties being listed in each city, respectively.
Melbourne’s market recorded the next highest monthly reduction of 4.5 per cent to 38,548 total listings, which is 1.5 per cent lower than levels from one year prior.
Although Perth recorded a monthly drop of 2.9 per cent to 15,621 total listings, the city’s current amount of property on the market still sits 13.9 per cent higher than levels from the previous year, marking the highest year-on-year growth across the capital cities.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Darwin market notched up the lowest monthly decrease of 2.8 per cent to 1,094 total listings, but also recorded the largest year-on-year decline, with the city’s April 2025 levels sitting 26.2 per cent below the 1,484 listings recorded in April 2024.
SQM Research said that the national reduction in listing volumes was partly caused by a fall in new residential property listings that have been listed for less than 30 days, which decreased by 11.6 per cent over the month to 66,232 properties nationwide.
Even though the number of new listings on the market in April 2025 registered 1 percentage point lower than volumes from one year earlier, managing director of SQM Research, Louis Christopher, said several recent external factors had driven this result.
“New listings in April were heavily impacted by the federal election as well as the Easter/Anzac Day holidays, so it’s a little more difficult to read much into April’s results,” Christopher said.
Nevertheless, Christopher said the number of older residential listings (listed for over 180 days) rose by 1.6 per cent nationally in April to 76,067 properties, marking a significant 10.6 per cent rise compared to a year prior.
Christopher noted that older listings had particularly increased in the nation’s two largest capitals, with the number of older listings in Sydney rising by 3 per cent to 6,638, and Melbourne’s older listings growing 3.2 per cent to 9,053.
“This is one indicator that suggests a softer Sydney and Melbourne market where vendors are still struggling to sell if they don’t meet the market,” Christopher said.
In contrast to Darwin’s performance for total listings growth over the month, the NT market was notably the only capital city to record a monthly decrease in old listings, which fell 1.8 per cent to 387 in April 2025, and registered 14.1 per cent lower than the levels recorded in April 2024.
Distressed listings fall over the month to ‘benign’ levels
Data showed that the number of properties listed under distressed conditions nationwide fell by 3.5 per cent over April 2025 to 4,796.
SQM Research noted that the number of distressed listings nationwide remains 8.8 per cent lower year-on-year, which it said was reflective of a “benign distressed properties environment at the national level”.
Across the nation, the data showed that NSW recorded a 9.7 per cent monthly decrease in distressed listings, which brought levels 12.7 per cent lower than those recorded in April 2024.
Contrastingly, the Victorian market notched up a considerably smaller 1.7 per cent monthly decrease in distressed listings that saw the state’s levels register 9.3 per cent higher than those recorded last year.
Even though Queensland was the sole state to record an increase (+0.3 per cent) in distressed listings over the month, the market’s current levels still registered 19.6 per cent lower than those in April 2024, and represented the greatest year-on-year shift across the nation.
SQM Research also showed that vendor confidence remained high over the month, with house prices increasing by 0.3 per cent, and unit prices by 0.2 per cent, resulting in a combined increase of 0.3 per cent.
Following the passage of external factors that impacted market sentiment in the previous months, Christopher said he expected a healthy increase in listing activity in May.
Christopher also noted that price growth could be on the horizon due to the lift in the market confidence after the end of the federal election period, and the prospect of further potential interest rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of Australia.
“Going forward, with the election behind us and a majority government in place, I expect a large uplift in new listings for May as well as a pick-up in auction clearance rates,” Christopher said.
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