Australia · AUS · snapshot 2026-08-16
Australia
Measured
Currency movement
-8.2%
The local currency bought more euros at the end of this window than at the start — a more expensive entry for a euro-denominated buyer, and a better exit for anyone already holding the asset.
What it does not show. It is not a forecast and not a property return. A currency move and a price move are different facts and routinely point opposite ways; nothing here says which way either is going next.
Foreign-buyer rules
4 of 4 published rules apply
These are the restrictions a foreign buyer meets before price is even discussed — approval regimes, surcharges, ownership limits.
What it does not show. It is not a completeness claim. A rule we have not read is not a rule that does not exist, and this row counts what is cited, not what is in force.
Cost of money
4.35%
The price of money to banks in this jurisdiction, which sets the floor everything else is priced from.
What it does not show. It is emphatically not a mortgage quote. What a non-resident is offered is a different number, usually much higher, and the gap between them is where a market's financing story actually lives.
Supply against absorption
Licence unconfirmed
Only one national statistics agency has been read and cleared for publication so far. For every other market the data exists and the permission to republish it does not.
Residential price cycle
131.9 against a 2015 base of 100
House prices have risen faster than consumer prices since 2015 — the market is above its own inflation-adjusted level of that year.
What it does not show. It is a position, not a direction, and it is not a valuation. Deflating by consumer prices says nothing about what the asset yields or what credit costs, and a market can sit above its 2015 level for years without that meaning anything is due.
Valuation against its own history
154.4 to income, 175.5 to rent
Housing costs more relative to incomes than it did in 2015, on this country's own index. Buying takes more years of a local salary than it did then, which is a statement about the people who live there rather than about a foreign buyer's return.
What it does not show. It is not comparable to another country's figure. Each index is 100 in its own 2015, so two of these side by side are two different base years wearing the same label — a market at 120 is not dearer than one at 90, it has merely moved further from its own past. It is also not a forecast, and a ratio can stay stretched for a decade.
On the market now
Not measured
No listings platform has been read for this market. The one platform this site can read covers Russian cities only, and inventing a count for anywhere else would be worse than an empty row.
No dossier has been written for this market yet. What follows is the measured layers and the rules, each with its source — not an argument about whether to be here. A market reaches this page as soon as two layers can be cited, because an unwritten thesis is a reason to publish less, not a reason to publish nothing.
The series behind those figures, and the workings
Currency
-8.2%
Twelve-month move in AUD per euro, 1.7862 in 2025-07 to 1.6396 in 2026-07. Positive means the local currency weakened. Source: European Central Bank monthly reference averages.
1.6333
Latest daily fixing, AUD per euro on 2026-08-14. Shown because it is what a reader would see if they went and looked; the window above uses monthly averages, which one volatile day cannot move.
Against other base currencies
A market is cheap or dear relative to the capital entering it, so the same twelve months read differently depending on what the buyer holds. Both legs are quoted per euro, so the euro cancels and no third source is involved.
| Buyer holds | AUD per unit, 2025-07 | AUD per unit, 2026-07 | Twelve-month move |
|---|---|---|---|
| US dollar (USD) | 1.5297 | 1.4360 | -6.1% |
| Pound sterling (GBP) | 2.0657 | 1.9201 | -7.1% |
| Swiss franc (CHF) | 1.9156 | 1.7714 | -7.5% |
| Singapore dollar (SGD) | 1.1940 | 1.1119 | -6.9% |
Cost of money
4.35%
Central bank policy rate, 2026-06. Source: Bank for International Settlements.
This is the price of money to banks, not the price of money to a non-resident buying a building. The gap between those two is where a market’s financing story actually lives, and it is not in this number. A mortgage quote for a foreign buyer depends on the lender, the asset and the borrower, and no public dataset carries it.
BIS terms permit this figure on a free page and state that nothing in their statistics constitutes investment advice. They also allow inclusion in a commercial product only where it adds no charge, so this series is published here and is not priced into any paid work.
Background
Annual national statistics from the World Bank, under a licence that permits reuse with attribution. They describe the country; they do not time an entry, and they are not counted as measurements of this market — otherwise every territory on earth would claim to be measured on the strength of one dataset.
| Indicator | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|
| GDP per capita | 65,130 US$ | 2025 |
| Consumer price inflation | 2.9 % | 2025 |
| Population | 27,614,411 | 2025 |
| Urban population | 87.7 % of total | 2025 |
| Official exchange rate | 1.5520 per US$ | 2025 |
What the rules do to a foreign buyer
Each entry cites the instrument and the authority page it was read from, with the date it was retrieved. Facts of law change; the retrieval date is how you know how old this reading is.
| Topic | In force | When it bites | Applies to | What applies | Instrument | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ban on buying established dwellings | In force2025-04-01 → 2027-03-31 | On the way in | Residential only | Foreign investors, including temporary residents and foreign-owned companies, cannot buy an established dwelling. The enacted ban runs from 1 April 2025 for two years, to 31 March 2027; an extension to 30 June 2029 has been announced in the 2026-27 Budget and is recorded separately below, because announced and enacted are different things to plan around. New dwellings and vacant land remain available subject to approval, and permanent residents and New Zealand citizens are outside the ban entirely. | Foreign investment framework, ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings (Treasury, 2024), with the period confirmed against the Australian Taxation Office's own page on the measure (QC104933, last updated 12 May 2026). | 2026-08-12 |
| Exceptions, and how hard the rule is policed | In force2025-04-01 → 2027-03-31 | On the way in | Residential only | The stated exceptions are narrow: investments that significantly increase or support housing supply, and employers under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme housing their workers. Funding was allocated to strengthen Australian Taxation Office screening and enforcement alongside the ban, so this is an actively policed regime rather than a nominal one. | Foreign investment framework, ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings (Treasury, 2024) | 2026-08-10 |
| Annual vacancy fee on a dwelling left empty | In forcefrom 2017-05-09 | While you hold it | Residential only | A foreign owner of Australian residential property lodges a vacancy fee return every year, within 30 days of the end of each vacancy year, and owes a vacancy fee if the dwelling was neither occupied nor genuinely available for rent for at least 183 days of that year. Not lodging on time can itself trigger the fee. It is charged at the foreign investment application fee that was paid — doubled, for vacancy years beginning on or after 9 April 2024. The Australian Taxation Office's own worked example puts that at A$26,400 a year on a A$850,000 townhouse. It binds owners who applied after 7:30 pm AEST on 9 May 2017, or who bought under a developer's new-dwelling exemption certificate applied for after that moment. | Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Fees Imposition Act 2015 vacancy fee regime, administered by the Australian Taxation Office. Read from the ATO's "Vacancy fee return for foreign owners" page, which records its own last update as 17 March 2026 and which serves only a browser — automated fetch receives HTTP 403. | 2026-08-12 |
| The ban's extension to 2029 is announced, not enacted | Announced only2027-04-01 → 2029-06-30 | On the way in | Residential only | The Australian Taxation Office states that in the Budget 2026-27 the government announced it will extend the ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings by two years and three months, to 30 June 2029. That is an announcement of intent in a budget paper: the words are "announced that it will extend", and the enacted period still ends 31 March 2027. A buyer planning a 2027 or 2028 purchase is planning around a measure that has been promised rather than passed, which is a different risk from the one the ban itself carries. | Australian Taxation Office, "Foreign investment — extending the ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings" (QC104933), recording its own last update as 12 May 2026 and citing Budget Paper No. 2, Budget 2026-27. | 2026-08-12 |
What supports this, what would make it wrong, and how it could go
Record
| Why this market is on the list | Added to the friction ledger because it is currently one of the strictest developed-market regimes for a foreign buyer, and because a prohibition is a more decisive input than any price signal. |
|---|---|
| Dossier | None written. Layers and rules only, which is why this market reads as “Measured” rather than reviewed. |
| Next review | 2026-10-10 |
| Evidence snapshot | 2026-08-16 |