← The Redlands Insider

August 2026 · Issue #4

A 20% fall was modelled. Nobody predicted it.

You may have seen a 20% fall discussed last week. It’s worth understanding exactly what that was, because it’s being repeated as though somebody predicted it.

Cotality published modelling of four scenarios — 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% — to illustrate what each would do to capital city values. That is a what-if exercise, the kind any serious analyst runs. It is not a forecast, and the distinction is not a technicality. A scenario answers “what would happen if”. A forecast answers “what do we think will happen”. Only one of those is a prediction.

What forecasters are actually saying

Those are numbers you can plan around. They describe a market that softens and then steadies — not one that collapses. And they’re a long way from the version circulating in group chats.

Why I’m raising it

Not to scare you. The opposite. Every softening market grows the same story: buyers walking away from a done deal, convinced that if they just wait, prices will tumble and they’ll swoop back in.

Timing the bottom is a game almost nobody wins, and the reason is simple. The bottom is only visible afterwards. By the time it’s obvious that values have stopped falling, competition has already returned and the discount you were waiting for has gone. Meanwhile you’ve spent two years watching the home you actually wanted drift out of reach.

The question worth asking instead

Not “where is the market going” — nobody knows, including me. Ask whether the home suits your life and your budget today, whether you can hold it comfortably if rates or circumstances move, and whether you’d still be glad you bought it in five years.

If the answer to those is yes, that’s a far stronger basis for a decision than a bet on where the market lands next winter. If it’s no, no forecast makes it a good idea.

Greg Leigh — local Redlands specialist, Queensland Sotheby’s International Realty. 300+ homes sold across Brisbane in 9 years.
Sources: Cotality downturn scenario modelling as reported 14 August 2026; PRD and ANZ commentary as reported.