While national headlines point to a cooling property market, one buyer’s agent says the story is more nuanced.
Kane Dury (pictured left), principal of Discover Buyers Agency, told news.com.au the "downturn" narrative is really a "Sydney and Melbourne story." PropTrack's June home price index showed capital cities fell 0.4% overall, led by Sydney (-0.5%) and Melbourne (-0.4%), while regional areas were flat and regional NSW rose 0.1%.
"Strip out the biggest cities, however, and you'll find regional Australia not just holding up, it's outperforming the capitals on almost every measure," Dury said.
REA Group senior economist Anne Flaherty (pictured right) offered a similar assessment, noting "regional markets outperformed capitals over both the month and the year," with affordability remaining the key driver of relative strength.
That advantage extends to rental returns, too: Cotality data shows regional yields running at 4.2% in May 2026, well ahead of the 3.5% average across the capitals, with the regional vacancy rate sitting at 1.5%, comfortably below the decade average of 2.5%.
With those fundamentals in mind, Dury named several regional cities across the $700,000 to $1 million bracket he considers strongest on value, rental demand, and economic diversity, favouring established homes over house-and-land packages.
In Queensland, his picks were Toowoomba, Townsville, and Mackay, citing Toowoomba's "double-digit annual growth" and diversified economy spanning health, education, agribusiness, and logistics.
Townsville, he said, has been "one of the fastest-growing markets in the country over the past year," underpinned by defence, port, and energy sector activity, while Mackay's tight vacancy rates reflect a broader economic base beyond its resources-town origins.
In Victoria, Dury pointed to Geelong, Bendigo, and Ballarat, noting Geelong's "diversified economy across health, education, advanced manufacturing and the port," with established homes still available in the $700,000 to $900,000 range.
His sole NSW pick was Wagga Wagga, which he described as a "classic multi-engine regional city" supported by defence, health, education, and transport, with a tight rental market pushing both rents and prices higher.
Dury argued the structural forces behind regional strength, vacancy rates near 1.5%, sustained internal migration, and constrained new housing supply, are more telling than national headline figures. He pointed to local indicators such as vacancy rates, days on market, and owner-occupier ratios as better predictors of opportunity than broad national averages.
The migration piece of that argument checks out: the CBA and Regional Australia Institute's Regional Movers Index recorded its highest reading on record in the March 2026 quarter, with city-to-region moves outnumbering the reverse flow by 29.7%.
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