The dust is beginning to settle on the 2026 Federal Budget, and the early signals flowing through into the property market are worth paying close attention to.
The Australian property market has entered genuinely new territory, with another rate rise from the Reserve Bank and the most significant changes to property investment in nearly three decades landing within weeks of each other. The combined effect on sentiment has been measurable. The national auction clearance rate fell to 48.5% in the week of 20 June 2026, well below the 66.3% recorded over the same week last year, and auction clearance rates have been slipping gradually since late 2025, with listings in Sydney and Melbourne creeping above their long-term averages. Properties are taking longer to sell, buyers are conducting deeper due diligence, and the urgency that characterised previous cycles has largely dissipated.
This is not a pause in the market. Underlying demand remains real: population growth, constrained supply, and tight rental conditions haven’t disappeared because the tax rules changed. What has shifted is the quality of decision-making. Strategic buyers who focus on well-located, investment-grade properties and hold them for the long term will continue to outperform. But the market remains a high-pressure environment in competitive pockets, and emotional decisions can still lead to overpaying, particularly when strong assets attract multiple motivated buyers regardless of broader conditions.
What this moment reinforces is something that has always been true of property: buying well comes back to strategy. There isn’t one Australian property market, and the budget changes won’t apply equally to every market or every price bracket. For well-prepared buyers who understand the landscape, the current environment presents a genuine opportunity. But the margin for error is narrow, and the cost of a poor decision, financial and otherwise, is higher than it was when rising prices could absorb a misstep.
In this month’s review, we break down what the budget changes are producing in practice, what the incoming AML compliance requirements mean for buyers, and how to position yourself strategically in a market that is rewarding preparation above everything else.
Where the Opportunity Still Lives
It would be easy to read the current headlines and conclude that the window has closed. It hasn’t. For buyers who are prepared, the shift in market conditions is actually creating something that has been in short supply for several years: genuine negotiating room.
With the national auction clearance rate sitting at 51%, roughly half of all properties taken to auction are passing in or being withdrawn, a result well below the long-run average of around 64%, which hands negotiating power to buyers who are active in the market. Vendor discounting has been rising across the combined capital cities, with the median discount reaching 3.3%, reflecting improved negotiating conditions for buyers. In practical terms, that represents a meaningful gap between what sellers are asking and what buyers are paying. The buyers capitalising on that gap are the ones who know what a property is genuinely worth before they sit down at the table, which is exactly where having an experienced buyer’s agent makes a material difference. At Moove, we arm clients with accurate market data and negotiate on their behalf with one goal in mind: securing the property at the best possible price and terms.
The market is increasingly defined by extended marketing campaigns and negotiation-driven transactions, prior to or following the auction, rather than fierce bidding competition. Vendors are adjusting their expectations, and realistic pricing and negotiation flexibility are now increasingly necessary for successful sales outcomes. For buyers, this means more time to assess, more leverage at the table, and fewer situations where emotion overrides judgement. That last point matters more than people expect. Buying a home is not just a financial move. It’s often a deeply emotional one. In a market that still has competitive pockets, having someone objective in your corner keeps the strategy intact when the pressure is on.
The picture is not uniform, however. In Sydney and Melbourne, stock levels have risen, giving buyers more options and more room to negotiate. Perth tells a different story. Vendors there are discounting by just 2.6%, sellers are holding firm, and competing offers continue to arrive quickly. Understanding which conditions apply to your specific target market, and how to position accordingly, is what separates a good outcome from an expensive one. Our buyers agents each complete around 40 transactions per year, well above the industry average of 5 to 10, which means deeper relationships with local selling agents, sharper negotiation instincts, and a more finely tuned read on conditions across each market.
Softer conditions are creating selective opportunities where motivated vendors are willing to negotiate, but only for buyers with finance already arranged. That is not a small caveat. The buyers winning in this environment are not the ones waiting on the sidelines for conditions to improve further. Nobody can pick the bottom, and waiting for the perfect moment often means missing properties that would have made sound long-term investments. They are the ones who have done the groundwork: finance confirmed, brief clear, and strategy locked in before they walk through the door. Moove’s fixed-price model and tech-enabled platform are built around exactly this, fast-tracking buyers from search to settlement, with an average time to purchase of just 38 days.
For well-prepared buyers, this is one of the more considered purchasing environments in recent memory. The pressure to decide on the spot has eased, the ability to negotiate has improved, and the sellers who need to transact are increasingly willing to meet a prepared buyer in the middle. The question is whether you’re positioned to take advantage of it when the right property appears.
AML/CTF Rule Changes: What’s Changing and What It Means for Buyers
The Federal Budget is not the only shift reshaping how property transactions work in Australia. From 1 July 2026, a separate but equally significant change takes effect, one that will touch every professional involved in a property purchase.
The ‘Tranche 2’ reforms expand AML/CTF compliance to apply to lawyers, accountants, real estate professionals, and property developers, professions that have until now operated largely outside the formal anti-money laundering framework. This follows the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Act 2024, which simplifies and modernises Australia’s AML/CTF laws, and brings the country into closer alignment with international standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The reason property is in the frame is straightforward. Real estate has been identified as a significant money laundering channel in Australia. Criminals buy property as a way of laundering or concealing illicit funds, as it allows for the movement of large sums in a single transaction, with the added risk that this can artificially inflate prices and create genuine hardship for legitimate buyers.
What This Means for Every Transaction from 1 July
The new obligations apply to anyone acting as a broker on behalf of buyers or sellers, including both selling agents and buyer’s agents, as well as property developers selling directly to customers. Lawyers and conveyancers who help plan or execute the sale, purchase, or transfer of real estate are captured under separate professional services designations. In practice, this means that every professional in your transaction, your buyer’s agent, selling agent, conveyancer, and solicitor, now carries their own individual compliance obligations.
Customer due diligence will become a core, day-to-day obligation. For vendors, it must be completed before designated services are provided. For buyers, it must be completed within 15 days of contract signing or before settlement. As a buyer, you should expect to provide additional documentation during your transaction, particularly around your identity, ownership structure, and in some cases the source of funds being used.
Source of funds checks deserve particular attention. These will include Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, source of wealth checks, and background checks against sanctions and Politically Exposed Person (PEP) databases. While many buyers will find these checks straightforward, those using complex ownership structures, trusts, SMSFs, company purchases, or funds from overseas, should expect more detailed scrutiny and be prepared to provide supporting documentation early in the process.
The practical takeaway for buyers is simple: come prepared. Having your identification documents, financial records, and evidence of funds ready before you exchange contracts will avoid delays at what is already one of the most time-pressured stages of a purchase. At Moove, we guide clients through every step from search to settlement, including coordinating with your legal and financial team, so that compliance requirements are managed as part of a smooth process rather than a last-minute scramble. In a market where days matter, being organised around AML obligations is no longer optional.
What This Means for Buyers
If you are in the market right now, or planning to be soon, the practical question is straightforward: what does all of this actually mean for you when you are sitting at the table ready to transact?
The honest answer is less alarming than the regulatory language might suggest. Buyers should expect to be asked for additional documentation during their transaction, particularly around identity, ownership structure, and in some cases the source of funds being used. This will include Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, source of wealth verification, and background checks against sanctions and Politically Exposed Person databases. These are not one-off requests. They will come from multiple directions. Your selling agent, your buyer’s agent, your conveyancer, and your mortgage broker are each now operating under their own individual compliance obligations, meaning each professional in your transaction may run their own verification process independently of the others.
That can feel like duplication. It isn’t. It is just the new structure of a compliant transaction. And importantly, early cooperation with document requests will help minimise delays and assist transactions to proceed efficiently. None of this reduces your ability to buy. It does not slow the market down for buyers who are prepared. What it does do is increase the cost of being disorganised, particularly at exchange and settlement, where timing is everything and a missing document can create delays that affect your finance approval, your settlement date, and your relationship with the vendor.
The buyers who will feel this most acutely are those using more complex structures: trusts, self-managed super funds, company purchases, or transactions involving funds from overseas. These situations are more likely to trigger enhanced due diligence requirements, and the documentation trail needed to satisfy those checks takes longer to pull together. Starting that process early, well before you find the property you want to buy, is the single most effective way to avoid it becoming a problem.
For the majority of buyers, a straightforward residential purchase is still exactly that. You are still buying one property and making one decision. What has changed is the administrative scaffolding around that decision, and how prepared you need to be when the moment arrives. The transaction itself, finding the right property, negotiating the right price, securing the right terms, remains what it has always been.
This is where having a buyer’s agent who understands the full compliance landscape pays dividends beyond the obvious. At Moove, we manage every aspect of the purchase from search through to settlement, which means we are across not just the property itself but the full process surrounding it, including coordinating with your conveyancer and mortgage broker to make sure compliance requirements are met without creating friction at the critical stages. Our average time from engagement to securing a property is well within three months, and a big part of what makes that possible is ensuring nothing in the administrative process catches a client off guard.
The market has always rewarded preparation. Right now, it is simply more explicit about what that preparation needs to include.
Why Buyers Should See This as an Advantage
It is tempting to look at the current environment, tighter borrowing conditions, budget reforms, new compliance requirements, and see only friction. But there is another way to read it, and for buyers who are genuinely prepared, it is the more accurate one.
Complexity filters the market. When the process becomes more structured and demanding, a portion of buyers, those who are hesitant, disorganised, or unclear on their finances, step back. They wait for things to simplify, for rates to fall, for the compliance obligations to feel less unfamiliar. That hesitation does not remove them from the market permanently, but it does remove them from the immediate competition. And for a buyer who has done the groundwork, that creates real opportunity.
Vendor discounting has risen to 3.3% across the combined capitals, and auction clearance rates have been tracking below 60% for the majority of the past three months, conditions that historically correlate with meaningful negotiating room for buyers who show up ready. The market is increasingly characterised by extended marketing campaigns and negotiation-driven transactions, with fewer properties selling under competitive bidding pressure at auction. Less competition at the table, more time to assess, and vendors who are increasingly motivated to transact with buyers they can trust to perform. These are the conditions that produce genuinely good outcomes for disciplined buyers.
The compliance layer reinforces this dynamic. Buyers who have their identity documents prepared, their source of funds documented, and their finance formally approved before they begin making offers are not just administratively ready. They are strategically positioned. A vendor who has had previous buyers fall over at due diligence or exchange will place real value on a buyer who can demonstrate they are clean, organised, and capable of completing. That confidence translates to leverage, and leverage translates to price and terms.
Financial clarity matters just as much. Knowing your actual borrowing capacity, not an estimate from six months ago, but a current, lender-assessed figure, means you can move with conviction when the right property appears. Without that clarity, emotional decision-making fills the gap, and excitement or impatience can derail a strategy that was sound on paper. In a market where overpaying carries more consequence than it did when values were rising quickly, having a clear ceiling and the discipline to hold it is one of the most valuable things a buyer can bring to a negotiation.
This is precisely what Moove is built for. Armed with accurate market data, our buyer’s agents negotiate on your behalf with one goal in mind: securing the property at the best possible price and terms. We assess each property that meets your criteria, handle negotiations, and attend auctions on your behalf, so that when the right asset appears, you are not scrambling to get ready. You are already there.
The current environment is not a reason to delay. For buyers who are prepared, it is one of the better setups for a considered, well-negotiated purchase that the market has offered in several years. The question is simply whether you are positioned to take advantage of it.
SMSF Changes: A Closing Window
The Federal Budget and AML reforms are not the only developments reshaping the property landscape this month. A further change, announced just days ago and moving quickly through Parliament, will significantly affect one of the most established strategies in property investment.
On 23 June 2026, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed a deal with the Australian Greens to ban SMSFs from entering new limited recourse borrowing arrangements (LRBAs) for residential property, as the price of securing Greens Senate support for the Government’s broader CGT and negative gearing legislation. The bill passed both houses of Parliament on 25 June 2026 and is now awaiting Royal Assent from the Governor-General. Once granted, expected in early July, a 45-day window opens, pointing to a commencement date of around 12 to 16 August 2026.
The practical effect is significant for anyone who has been considering this path. A signed contract is the dividing line. An exchanged contract before commencement is the key determinant. Those purchases are expected to be protected and can proceed through to settlement even if formal loan approval is still pending. Where no contract has been signed, transitional protection is unlikely to apply. The 45-day window exists to complete existing deals, not start new ones.
It is worth being clear on what the ban does and does not cover. Existing SMSF residential property continues to operate as it does today. Commercial property LRBAs are untouched. Cash purchases of residential property inside an SMSF are completely unaffected. New SMSF setups can still hold property, just not residential property funded by an LRBA after the cut-off. And notably, following the 2026 Budget changes, an SMSF is now the only structure in which an Australian can purchase an existing residential property as an investment and still negatively gear it, which makes the tax case for property inside super arguably stronger than it was before, even as the borrowing pathway narrows.
The result is a short but sharp increase in SMSF activity. Investors who have been weighing this strategy are now moving with urgency, and competition for suitable stock in the segments that work for SMSF purchases (typically lower-maintenance properties in strong rental locations) is tightening as a consequence. For buyers who were already positioned and clear on their strategy, the window is narrow but achievable. For those still in the research phase, the timeline is not forgiving.
If you’ve already decided you want to buy residential property through your SMSF, the right order is independent financial and SMSF advice first, then lending, then property. Skipping steps to save time tends to create bigger problems at exchange. At Moove, our Investor and Investor Bespoke services are built for exactly this kind of time-sensitive, strategy-led purchase, using a proprietary data-driven approach across 15,000 suburbs to identify the right location, then moving quickly to search, find, negotiate and secure the property once the financial structure is confirmed. Speed matters here, but it has to be the right kind of speed: informed, prepared, and guided by people who understand both the market and the deadline.
What We’re Seeing in the Market
Beyond the data, the most useful read on any market comes from what is actually happening at ground level. Here is what we are observing across the markets we operate in.
The most consistent shift since Budget night has been in vendor expectations. Vendor discounting has risen to 3.3% across the combined capital cities, and selling times have begun to increase, a shift that reflects softening demand in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty. In practical terms, what this looks like on the ground is sellers who are more willing to engage in genuine price conversations. The gap between what a vendor believes their property is worth and what a prepared buyer is willing to pay has narrowed, not because values have collapsed, but because the weight of evidence is harder to argue against when clearance rates are sitting below 50% and comparable sales are trending softer.
Auction campaigns are increasingly characterised by extended marketing periods and negotiation-driven transactions, with more deals being struck prior to or after the auction rather than under competitive bidding on the day. The emotional frenzy that defined auction conditions in stronger markets, the kind that pushed buyers well past their limits, has cooled in a number of segments. Buyers who previously felt they had no choice but to bid beyond their ceiling are now finding that patience and preparation are being rewarded in ways they simply weren’t twelve months ago.
That said, the picture is not uniform, and it would be misleading to suggest the market has softened uniformly. Strong properties in high-demand suburbs are continuing to hold firm. Perth, for instance, shows total advertised stock running 14.7% below year-ago levels, with vendors discounting by just 2.6%. Well-located homes with genuine scarcity value, the kind of asset that attracts both owner-occupiers and investors regardless of the macro environment, are still generating competition and selling quickly when priced correctly. Strategic investors who buy well-located, investment-grade properties and hold them for the long term will continue to outperform. The softening is real, but it is concentrated in overpriced stock, secondary locations, and properties that were always going to struggle once the market stopped rising fast enough to forgive a poor purchase decision.
What ties all of this together is strategy. The buyers achieving the best outcomes right now are not the ones waiting for the market to bottom out. They are the ones who have identified the right asset, understood what it is genuinely worth, and arrived at the table ready to move. Equally, the buyers falling short are still the ones making decisions reactively, chasing properties out of fear of missing out, overbidding on emotion, or moving without the financial preparation to perform. The market has changed, but that dynamic hasn’t.
This is the environment Moove was designed for. We help clients pinpoint the right location for their goals, access off-market, pre-market, and on-market opportunities through our agent network, and negotiate on their behalf once the right property is identified. In a market that is simultaneously offering genuine opportunity and genuine risk depending on which property you buy and how you buy it, having that layer of expertise is not incidental to a good outcome. It is central to it.
Buyers Still Have a Real Opportunity Right Now
For all the complexity the current environment brings, one thing is worth saying plainly: this is not a market to sit out.
The conditions that exist right now, softening vendor expectations, reduced competition in select segments, more room to negotiate, and a compliance framework that rewards organised buyers, are not permanent. Rate cycles turn. Sentiment shifts. The window that exists today for a prepared buyer to move with conviction and negotiate with leverage will not stay open indefinitely.
The buyers who are performing best in this environment share a consistent set of characteristics. They enter the market fully prepared, not with a vague sense of what they want, but with a clear brief, a current understanding of their borrowing capacity, and a realistic picture of what the right asset looks like in the locations they are targeting. Research shows the average home buyer’s journey takes upwards of 18 months, but that timeline is largely a product of being underprepared, not of the market itself. The buyers who move efficiently are the ones who have done the groundwork before they start, not while they go.
They also understand the compliance landscape early. In a transaction environment where your selling agent, buyer’s agent, conveyancer, and mortgage broker each carry independent AML/CTF obligations, early cooperation with documentation requests is what allows a transaction to proceed efficiently. Buyers who treat identity verification and source of funds checks as a surprise rather than an expectation are the ones creating delays at exchange. And in a competitive situation, a delay can cost you the property.
Finance and documentation being ready before you find the property is no longer just good practice. It is the difference between being a credible buyer and an uncertain one. Motivated vendors are willing to negotiate, but only for buyers with finance already arranged. A formal pre-approval that reflects current borrowing capacity, not an estimate, not a figure from six months ago, is what gives you the standing to move decisively when the right opportunity appears.
And decisiveness, when it counts, is what separates outcomes. Nobody can pick the bottom, and waiting for the perfect moment often means missing properties that would have made sound long-term investments. The buyers performing best right now are not waiting for certainty. They are acting on preparation. They know what they are looking for, they know what it is worth, and when it appears, they move.
That combination, clarity, preparation, compliance readiness, and decisive action, is not complicated. But in a market with this much noise, it requires discipline to maintain. Having the right team around you is what makes that discipline sustainable rather than exhausting.
How a Buyer’s Agent Can Give You the Edge
There is a meaningful difference between searching for a property and competing for one. In the current market, the buyers achieving the best outcomes are not simply the ones who found the right property. They are the ones who were positioned to win it when they did.
This is where a buyer’s agent earns their fee, and then some.
The value begins before you ever walk through a door. A buyer’s agent ensures you have expert knowledge of emerging suburbs, upcoming infrastructure, and growth areas, helping you identify undervalued properties and avoid overpriced or high-risk listings before you commit time and emotion to a search. In the current environment, that also means ensuring your documentation is in order, your finance is formally confirmed, and your compliance obligations under the new AML/CTF framework are understood before the process begins. Arriving at a transaction prepared is no longer a courtesy. It is a competitive advantage.
Through our agent network, Moove identifies off-market, pre-market, and on-market opportunities that match your brief, properties that many buyers competing on public listings will never see. In a market where quality stock in the right locations continues to attract genuine demand, access to the full range of available opportunities is not a small thing. Our buyers agents each complete around 40 transactions per year, well above the industry average of 5 to 10, which means deeper relationships with local selling agents and a sharper read on where the real opportunities are before they become widely known.
When it comes to negotiation, the advantage of having an expert in your corner is at its most tangible. With someone objective providing advice, emotions like excitement or impatience don’t derail your strategy. In a market that still has competitive pockets, that objectivity is the difference between a considered offer and an expensive one. Armed with accurate market data, we negotiate on your behalf with one goal: securing the property at the best possible price and terms.
Beyond the negotiation itself, a buyer’s agent keeps the transaction moving. From the moment a property is identified through to settlement, we coordinate with your financier, conveyancer, and legal team, ensuring that compliance requirements, documentation requests, and settlement milestones do not create friction at the stages that matter most. Moove’s fixed-price model and tech-enabled platform are built to fast-track buyers from search to settlement, with an average time to purchase of just 38 days.
In a more structured market, one shaped by tighter borrowing conditions, new tax rules, AML compliance obligations, and a closing window on SMSF borrowing, that level of coordinated support is not a luxury. It is a clear, measurable advantage for anyone serious about buying well.
The Market Has Changed. Your Approach Should Too.
The 2026 Federal Budget, rising interest rates, incoming AML/CTF obligations, and the imminent closure of SMSF residential borrowing have collectively produced a property market that looks and behaves differently to the one that existed twelve months ago. The old playbook, move fast, borrow aggressively, let the market do the work, has been replaced by one that demands strategy, preparation, and the right guidance.
For buyers who are ready, the opportunity is real. For those who are not, the cost of missteps is higher than it has been in years.
If you are navigating a purchase, reassessing your investment strategy, or simply trying to understand what the current market means for your next move, we would love to help. Get in touch for a free consultation in today’s complex environment.
