Real estate agents noted that there has been a marked increase in the number of homes listed for sale in the last week alongside buyer queries.
BresicWhitney CEO Thomas McGlynn expects this momentum to continue in the coming weeks after Labor secured a majority government at the federal election on Saturday.
“If we see rates fall in May, which is a strong possibility, we may be in for quite a busy winter period”, Whitney said.
Melbourne-based buyers’ agent Cate Bakos in turn says inquiries from prospective home buyers have also increased in the wake of the election.
“It’s almost an immediate reaction to the election result”, she said. “Inquiries rose sharply compared to the previous week. They jumped 30% on Sunday, they climbed by another 50% on Monday and were up another 50% today”.
Arjun Paliwal, head of research at buyer’s agency InvestorKit, said that investor inquiries have also surged.
“We’ve already seen a 15% uplift on our daily consultation rates, just in recent days alone. It’s been crazy”, he said.
“I think people are now welcoming that stability, so we’re expecting inquiries to pick up even faster”.
Finally, Eliza Owen from Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) said that first-home buyers will return to the market when Labor’s election policies are implemented.
“Once we see the expansion of the 5% home guarantee scheme, I think that will have strong take-up and increase the amount of first-time buyer participation in the market”, she said.
“We know that the actual portion of 25- to 34-year-olds who have been purchasing is trending lower over time, so that suggests that there is latent first-time buyer demand that might be activated by the 5% home guarantee scheme”.
The outlook for house prices is bullish.
First and foremost, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is forecast by financial markets to cut interest rates another four times this year, with the cash rate forecast to end 2025 at 3.10%.
Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro estimated that a 1% reduction in interest rates would reduce the average interest paid on household loans by around 1.5% of disposable income.
Fabo also showed that “since the early 1990s, housing price growth in Australia has quickened, or the rate of decline slowed, every time the RBA has embarked on policy easing”.
House prices will also receive a boost when Labor’s 5% deposits for all first home buyers come into effect on 1 January 2026.
Labor’s policy will increase borrowing capacity and draw more first home buyers into the market, lifting overall buyer demand and prices.
As a father with two teenage children, this is not what I want to see. Australian housing is already unaffordable on every metric.
More mortgage fuel on the housing bonfire is the last thing Australia needs.
