Market Insights
Rare Window Opens For Buyers to Trade Up
October 7 2026
Current market conditions are the best they have been in decades for those seeking to trade-up for long-term gain.
Gold Coast homeowners ready to trade up or unlock value from well-located property they already own could become the biggest winners of the current market.
Softer investor competition combined with rising rents has created a rare opportunity window for those owner-occupiers seeking to upsize or upscale their homes.
Kollosche Managing Director Michael Kollosche said: “It is fair to say, this may be the most opportune time to upgrade in many years.”
The trend has emerged just months after the Federal Government proposed changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions that prompted many Australians to reassess where they held capital. A principal place of residence remains one of the few major assets that can be sold free of capital gains tax.
Simultaneously, the market has shifted beneath buyers’ feet. On the Gold Coast, data from SQM Research shows median house asking prices to have fallen 8.6 per cent since March. Although overall annual price growth remains positive, buying power is the strongest it has been in more than a decade.
Buyers also have more room to negotiate, with homes spending longer on the market and total listings climbing to their highest point since 2020.
Mr Kollosche said attention was shifting away from investors towards those owner-occupiers who are best placed to take advantage of these new settings.
“Upgraders moving now are doing so with less competition,” he said. “They’re not up against the same depth of investor money which gives them leverage on price and terms that they simply didn’t have two years ago.”
Mr Kollosche said the smartest strategy, particularly for young families, was not to wait for the perfect property, but to secure a well-positioned home at today’s prices that could be improved or upgraded over time.
“Buy the land and location that you would want to be in ten years from now, even if the house feels like a compromise today,” he said. “You can renovate or rebuild later, but you will never be able to buy the position at today’s price.”
He said long-term value on the Gold Coast would always been driven by land rather than the dwelling on it.
“Trends changes, interiors can be renovated but land scarcity, aspect and positioning will always remain the key buying criteria.”
The same logic applies to owners who already hold property in sought-after locations. Rather than selling, Mr Kollosche said many would be better served adding value
“If you already own a great position, you have made the hardest decision,” he said. “Improving that asset rather than selling it lets you capture the upside in land you already hold, without paying to get back in.”
Rents, meanwhile, have moved the other way. Domain showed the Gold Coast’s median house rent hit a record $950 a week in the June quarter, with units at $850, making it the most expensive rental market in the country.
With investment policy changes prompting landlords to lift asking rents, owners deciding to sell and rent while they wait for the right home will be stuck in an increasingly costly holding pattern.
“Rent has become a significant after-tax cost for many households,” Mr Kollosche said. “Redirect that into a mortgage on a well-located home and you are building equity in a tax-advantaged asset instead of servicing that of a landlord.”
Mr Kollosche said upgraders did not need to make the leap in a single move.
“Get the first move right and each one thereafter gets easier because you are trading up from an asset that has kept pace with the market,” he said.
“No one can predict when the market will reach its bottom. Owners with a long-term view don’t need to time things perfectly. They need to buy the right asset and do so in today’s market.”
- Editor
