Aus distressed sales plunge but one capital explodes a shock 36pc

This Sydenham property in Victoria has just been put up for sale by the mortgagee who took possession.

Australia’s distressed listings have fallen a solid 9.9pc year-on-year, but troubling signs are emerging in three capitals, one of which has just had a gut-wrenching 36pc monthly spike.

National distressed listings figures by SQM Research saw a 4.2 per cent monthly fall emerge in May, dropping to 4,593 homes being put up in forced sales – a drop in the ocean compared to what economists were expecting overall but several capitals have seen big annual jumps.

The latest figures have 1,311 homes up for distressed sale in Queensland, 1,127 in New South Wales, 1,033 in Victoria, 621 in Western Australia, 248 in South Australia, 117 in Tasmania, 102 in Northern Territory and 34 in ACT. But the concern lies in where those numbers have come from.

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The mortgagee is in possession of this Northbridge, NSW five bedroom house which is on a massive 1,859sq m block.

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SQM Research head Louis Christopher said “VIC’s distressed listings were up 8.1 per cent over the year, “while ACT was the only state to post a significant monthly rise at 36pc, now 13.3pc higher annually.”

Queensland has consistently held the highest number of distressed listings hovering around 1,300, followed by NSW and Victoria which both sat around 1000 to 1200 in the past few months.

But the Australian capital has seen shocking volatility in its numbers, with the current figure fluctuating after a 32.4pc monthly decrease in April, a 48pc monthly increase in March and a 13.6pc monthly increase in January.

Victoria’s 8.1pc annual rise in May comes after three consecutive months of concerning figures, with a 9.3pc annual rise in April, 8pc annually in March, and a significant yearly jump of 18.2pc in February. Annual figures are compared to the same month the previous year while monthly rises are against the month before.

SQM Research distressed listings for May 2025. Source: SQM Research.

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The ACT monthly surge comes as other states saw declines during May compared to April, led by WA (-9.6pc) and Qld (-5.5pc), while NSW dipped slightly by 0.4pc and VIC fell by 5.1pc.

Mr Christopher said actual mortgagee sales made up about one fifth of current data, with around 500 homes nationally being sold after repossession, but a far bigger number were being forced to market before that situation came to a head.

“I think the banks are massaging the number,” he claimed. “To do a mortgagee in possession is the final straw for a bank. So what often happens before that final straw is the banks will informally push the borrower to sell. So I’ll basically make a phone call and say ‘you don’t sell your property by this day, we’re going to.”

“So we think it’s a better measurement that we’re capturing. We believe we are capturing those ones where it’s a bank that’s pushing the borrower to sell informally.”

SQM data incorporates a range of situations apart from mortgagee sales to properties pushed to market by divorce and deceased estates.

Mr Christopher said Australia had survived the past two years of interest rate surges and cost of living spikes much better than expected.

“In truth, distress listings activity over the past two years has been lower than what we expected as a research house,” Mr Christopher said.

“Our expectation was that we would see distress listings activity get over 10,000 listings following the interest rate rise in 2022, and that didn’t materialise.”

SQM Research distressed listings April 2025. Source: SQM Research.

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“Now it is true that we have seen a pick-up in listings over that time in New South Wales and Victoria. In more recent times that pick-up has subsided, and levelled out, and in no state are really recording distress listings activities at alarming levels which would put downward pressure on housing prices.”

Mr Christopher said the figures were below longer term average levels that SQM had seen.

“With the interest rate cuts we’ve had, and yet another likely next month, I think the outlook for distress activity is that they’re going to keep falling.”

He said the figures did “jump around from month to month, that is true, so I do tend to like looking at the yearly numbers more and I like looking at the trend of the actual chart itself.”

This 817sq m corner site in Balmoral, Brisbane has been put up for mortgagee sale with a DA & BA for 2 new boutique houses.

Mr Christopher said distress listings did offer opportunities to get in the market at a lower price.

“Not all of them, but quite a large proportion of them we find that there are opportunities for buyers in this list.”

He said the hot ones moved “real quick” – gone after a week. “You can tell right away they were actually really, really good value ones because they’ve moved pretty quickly overall”.

“The housing market is far more efficient than what it was, say, 10, 20, 30 years ago, so bargains can be pinpointed pretty quickly if they’re a genuine.”

He said current distress levels were “relatively benign” compared with other financial crisis situations faced by Australians in the past.

“They are commensurate and consistent with the low default rates that the banks have been reporting.”

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SQM Research distressed listings March 2025. Source: SQM Research.

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