October 2026 · Issue #10
Three weeks or sixty days: what separates the townhouses that sell from the ones that sit
We sell a lot of townhouses in Thornlands, so we watch the complexes closely. Right now they’re telling two stories at once. Sixteen townhouses are for sale across the suburb. Nine of them have been on the market for two months or more, and every one of those nine with a price history has already cut its asking price, by anywhere from 3% to 12.5%. The longest has been listed for 223 days. In the same complex as two of them, in the same month, 80/47 Freshwater Street at Bayside Vista went from listed to under contract in 19 days.
It would be easy to read the stale nine as the market turning. It isn’t, or not mostly. Here are the numbers.
Thornlands townhouses for sale · Pricefinder, 12 October 2026
| Listed for sale | 16 |
| Listed less than 30 days | 7 |
| Listed 45 days or more | 9 |
| Median days on market, all sixteen | 55 |
| Price cuts on the stale nine | 3% to 12.5% |
| 80/47 Freshwater St, listed to under contract | 19 days |
The complexes are still selling
Pull the sales rather than the listings and the picture is steadier than the stale signs suggest. Within a kilometre of Bayside Vista, 62 townhouses and units have sold in the past twelve months. The 33 three-bedroom townhouses sold so far in 2026 have a median price of $815,000, and the 20 sold in the last six months a median of $830,000. Bayside Vista itself has recorded ten sales in the year, from $695,000 to $845,000, with the three most recent, between June and August, landing between $765,000 and $820,500.
Thornlands townhouse sales · Pricefinder, within 1 km of Bayside Vista
| Sold in the past twelve months | 62 |
| Three-bedroom, 2026 to date | 33 · median $815,000 |
| Sold in the last six months | 20 · median $830,000 |
| Bayside Vista, past twelve months | 10 · $695k–$845k |
| Bayside Vista, last three sales (Jun–Aug) | $765k–$820,500 |
So buyers are still buying three-bedroom townhouses in Thornlands, and still paying in the low-to-mid $800,000s for them. What’s changed since the start of the year is that they have more to choose from and they are taking longer to choose. In that setting the first fortnight decides almost everything.
What the stale nine have in common
Look at the price history on the long-dated listings and the same pattern repeats. They launched at a figure that would have been right in February, when Bayside Vista’s top sale of the year went through at $845,000. Buyers compared them to the three or four other units on the market, didn’t act, and the listing went quiet. Four, six, eight weeks later the price came down, by which point the buyers who had been watching had already decided the home was overpriced and had moved on to the next one. The cut didn’t bring them back; it confirmed what they thought. Several of the nine have cut more than once.
A price cut in week eight costs more than pricing right in week one, and it doesn’t get the first fortnight back.
The two in Bayside Vista are the clearest example. One has been listed for 63 days and has come down 8.5%. Unit 80 was launched in the same complex on 3 September, priced to the last sixty days of sales rather than to February, offered first to the buyers already on my list, and was under contract on 22 September at $790,000, above the advertised price, after three written offers.
Three weeks or sixty days
The difference between the two outcomes was set before either sign went up. It came down to three decisions: the price the home launched at, how it was presented and positioned against everything else a buyer could see that weekend, and whether the right buyers knew about it before it went online. None of those is about the market. All of them are about the fortnight before launch.
The Redlands read
Selling, buying or holding
If you’re selling, the first fortnight is your campaign. Price to the last sixty days of sales in your complex, not to the best sale of the year, and get your home in front of the buyers who are already waiting before it goes public.
If you’re buying, the nine long-dated listings are where the negotiating room is. A home that has already cut once will usually move again; a home that is three weeks in and priced right usually won’t.
If you’re holding, particularly as an investor from interstate, the median hasn’t gone backwards. What has moved is the cost of getting the launch wrong, which is worth knowing before you ever decide to sell.
General information only — not financial, tax or legal advice.
Is yours a three-week home or a sixty-day one? Get a straight figure against the last sixty days of sales in your complex, delivered as a private page on your phone.
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Greg Leigh — local Redlands specialist, Queensland Sotheby’s International Realty. Published 13 October 2026.
Sources: Pricefinder sales and listings data for Thornlands, extracted 12 October 2026 (sales within 1 km of 47 Freshwater Street, October 2025 to August 2026; current listings with days on market and price change); campaign dates for 80/47 Freshwater Street from the agent’s own records. Sale prices quoted are those publicly recorded; undisclosed sales are excluded.