Last week Westpac dropped its May 2026 housing update. That makes seven major 2026 calls now public — CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, KPMG, SQM Research and PropTrack. For Sydney they range from about -6% to +7%. That's a spread of about 13 points on the country's biggest market. Whose call do you trust?
| Forecaster | 2026 call |
|---|---|
| SQM Research (base) SQM Research, revised 2026 forecasts, 10 Mar 2026 | -6% to -2% (Nov 2025: +3% to +6%) |
| Westpac IQ Housing Forecast Update, 26 May 2026 | -3% |
| ANZ Research Bluenotes, April 2026 | Small fall (~-1 to -2%) |
| CBA Reported via APU, Q1 2026 | Flat to slight fall |
| NAB Reported via APU, Q1 2026 | Modest positive (~+3-5%) |
| PropTrack Property Outlook Report, Dec 2025 | +5 to +7% |
| KPMG Residential Outlook, Jan 2026 | +5.8% |
Update, 24 October 2026: the SQM Research row shows its revised 2026 base case (SQM Research, revised 2026 dwelling price forecasts, released 10 Mar 2026), which replaced its November 2025 base case (Christopher's Housing Boom and Bust Report 2026, 25 Nov 2025) before this issue was published. PropTrack has since revised its Sydney 2026 forecast to -3% (realestate.com.au Property Outlook Report, 18 Jun 2026).
Range: about -6% (SQM Research, 10 Mar 2026) to +7% (PropTrack, Dec 2025). Spread: about 13 percentage points.
That isn't a normal forecaster disagreement. That's the market telling you no one knows.
Perth 2026 calls range from +9% (Westpac) to +13% (KPMG) to +12-16% (SQM Research, 25 Nov 2025; revised to +10% to +13% on 10 Mar 2026). Even Melbourne — supposedly the easy "weak" call — has KPMG at +6.8% and Westpac at -4%. An eleven-point spread. When forecasters cluster, you can lean on the consensus. When they split this wide, the consensus number is fiction.
Pull at least three numbers for any city you care about: long-run growth (Cotality 10-year), suburb-level actuals from the last 12 months, and the average across the seven forecasters above. If a property pitch leans on a single bank's forecast, that's the weakest part of the case.
A bank that is rapidly revising in one direction is telling you the current call is unstable. Track changes month-on-month, not the snapshot.
A national or capital-city forecast averages across hundreds of submarkets. The same year Sydney falls -3% at the headline level, a specific corridor can grow 15%+. If you can't trust the headline, work one level down.
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One question
Which forecaster's 2026 call have you actually read end-to-end — not just the press summary, but the underlying methodology? Reply with the source. I'm compiling a side-by-side dispersion chart for next week and will send it back to anyone who replies.
Go one level down
City forecasts are noise. Suburb data is signal.
Run a free Estait report on any Australian suburb — actual median, yield, DOM, vacancy, growth, zoning, and an AI investment brief.
Run a free report →Forecast figures sourced from each institution's most recent public publication as at 30 May 2026: KPMG (Jan 2026), Westpac IQ (May 2026), ANZ Bluenotes (April 2026), SQM Research, Christopher's Housing Boom and Bust Report 2026 (25 Nov 2025) and its revised 2026 forecasts (10 Mar 2026), PropTrack Property Outlook Report (December 2025), and Australian Property Update coverage of CBA/NAB Q1 2026 economics notes. Later revision noted above: realestate.com.au Property Outlook Report (18 Jun 2026). Long-run growth series named in rule 1: Source: Cotality®.
Forecast figures sourced from public publications as of 2026-05-30. Not financial advice.
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