According to Cotality’s latest Pain & Gain report, which analysed approximately 100,000 resales, profitability increased from 94.9 per cent in the June quarter, marking the strongest result since July 2005.
The surge coincides with eight consecutive months of record-high national home values leading up to September 2025.
The median nominal gain from property resales reached an unprecedented $335,000, surpassing the previous record of $325,600 set in December 2021.
Cotality’s Head of Research, Eliza Owen, put the improved market conditions down to changes in monetary policy earlier in the year.
“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,” Ms Owen said.
Brisbane emerged as the standout performer among capital cities, achieving a near-perfect 99.8 per cent profitability rate for the fourth consecutive quarter.
Brisbane sellers also recorded the highest median nominal gain among capitals at $444,000 across all residential properties.
Regional Australia continued its strong performance, maintaining a higher profitability rate (97.3 per cent) than the combined capital cities (94.4 per cent).
This marks over five years of regional markets outperforming capital cities in terms of profitability percentage since June 2020.
Despite the higher likelihood of profit-making sales in regional areas, the dollar value of gains remained lower, with the median regional profit at $290,000 compared to $370,000 in capital cities.
Adelaide followed closely behind Brisbane with 99.3 per cent of sales returning a nominal gain and the second-highest median profit at $407,500.
Perth secured third place among capitals with a 98.2 per cent profitability rate.
Houses significantly outperformed units, with 97.9 per cent of house resales turning a profit compared to 90.6 per cent for units.
Despite representing only one-third of resale activity, units accounted for 68.9 per cent of all loss-making sales.
Melbourne’s unit market showed signs of improvement with loss-making resales falling by 13.5 per cent over the quarter.
However, Melbourne units still accounted for the largest share of loss-making sales nationally at 29.1 per cent.
Darwin recorded the highest rate of loss-making sales at 17.2 per cent, though it also showed the most improvement over the year with loss-making sales dropping by nearly 14 percentage points.
The median hold period for all resales increased to 9.0 years in the quarter, slightly higher than the 8.2 years for loss-making resales, suggesting longer holding periods generally correlate with better outcomes.
Looking ahead to 2026, Ms Owen cautioned about potential challenges to the current profitability trend.
“Weakening market conditions, as seen by the capital city clearance rate dipping below 60 per cent at the end of 2025, often coincide with slowing rates of profitability,” she said.
“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.”
