Home sellers cash in as profits hit 20-year high

Australians selling their homes are enjoying their strongest run of profits in more than two decades, as rising prices through 2025 delivered record gains across most of the country.

Cotality’s latest Pain & Gain report shows the median nominal gain on property resales has reached a new national record of $335,000.

95.5% of Australian residential resales were also profitable in the September quarter of 2025, the highest proportion since July 2005.

The analysis, based on around 100,000 resales, marks a further lift from 94.9% recorded by Cotality in the June quarter of 2025 and underscores the scale of the rebound in housing values over the past year.

The details

Cotality says the surge in profitability of home resales has been driven by a prolonged upswing in prices, with national home values setting new record highs for eight consecutive months to the end of September.

That momentum pushed the median nominal gain on resale to a record $335,000, eclipsing the previous peak of $325,600 reached during the pandemic boom in late 2021.

“The increase in profitability was strongly correlated with rising market values throughout 2025, driven partly by improved credit conditions after cash rate cuts earlier in the year,” says Cotality’s Head of Research, Eliza Owen.

The report highlights a widening performance gap between houses and units.

Almost 98% of house resales made a nominal profit, compared with just over 90% of unit sales.

Despite accounting for only about a third of resale activity, units were responsible for nearly 69% of all loss-making transactions nationally.

Dec18-Proportion

Brisbane again topped the capital cities, recording a 99.8% profitability rate for the fourth consecutive quarter.

Sellers in the Queensland capital also enjoyed the highest median nominal gain of any capital city at $444,000, while an extraordinary 99.9% of unit resales in Greater Brisbane made a profit.

Adelaide followed closely, with 99.3% of sales profitable and a median gain of $407,500, while Perth ranked third with a profitability rate of 98.2%.

At the weaker end of the market, Darwin recorded the highest share of loss-making sales at 17.2% though it was also the most improved city over the year.

Melbourne and Sydney followed, with loss-making sales accounting for 9.3% and 7.5% of resales respectively.

Melbourne’s unit market remains the weakest spot in the country, although conditions improved over the quarter.

Loss-making unit resales fell by 13.5%, or about 200 sales, but Melbourne units still represented 29.1% of all loss-making sales nationwide.

Regional Australia continued to outperform the capitals in terms of the likelihood of making a profit, with 97.3% of regional resales in the black, compared with 94.4% across the combined capital cities.

However, capital city sellers continued to enjoy larger dollar gains, with a median profit of $370,000 versus $290,000 in regional markets.

The median hold period for resold properties rose to nine years, suggesting longer ownership continues to provide a buffer against losses.

“Short selling times can increase the risk of making a loss, but the recent rise in profitability across most regions suggests a greater level of stability is returning to the market,” Cotality’s Eliza Owen says.

The outlook

While the headline figures point to a remarkably strong market for sellers, Ms Owen warns that the outlook beyond 2025 is less clear.

“In 2026, the path for profitability is less certain because of the changed outlook for interest rates, which will be an issue for recent home buyers in particular,” she says.

Final auction clearance rates in the capital cities have also slipped below 60% late in 2025, and higher-value segments of the Sydney market are already showing signs of price declines.

“Weakening market conditions, as seen by the capital city clearance rate… often coincide with slowing rates of profitability,” Ms Owen says.

“We are now seeing some higher-value segments in Sydney already moving into decline, which could test the resilience of profitability for short-term sellers in the year ahead.”

For now, Cotality’s figures confirm that sellers who exited the market in late 2025 did so at a uniquely profitable point in Australia’s housing cycle.