First-home buyers waiting for lower prices are now the majority, not the exception. A bank-commissioned survey of 1,165 Australians, run by Lonergan Research from 18 to 28 September, found 75% of first-home buyers want prices to fall further before they commit. Another 73% want interest rates to settle first.
That is a market in suspended animation. It is also a loop, and loops are worth understanding before you decide whether to join them.
Wanting to buy and actually buying are different things
Here is the awkward part of the data. Despite all that caution, 79% of first-home buyers say they feel keener to buy than they did twelve months ago. Appetite has not gone away. What has changed is the price at which people are willing to act.
Over a longer horizon, 55% of respondents expect to move house within a year, while 81% continue to regard property as the strongest path to building wealth. Belief in the asset class is intact. Belief in today’s entry price is not.
Key numbers
- 75% of first-home buyers waiting for further price falls
- 73% waiting for rates to settle
- 79% keener to buy than a year ago
- 40% name affordability as the top influence
- Survey of 1,165 people, 18 to 28 September
How price falls feed the delay that feeds price falls
The mechanics are simple enough. When prices drop, a buyer who is already unsure has a fresh reason to hold off: the same property may be cheaper next month. If enough buyers reason this way, fewer offers land, sellers face thinner competition, and prices soften again. That softening then becomes the next reason to wait.
This is not irrational. For any one buyer, waiting while prices fall is often the right call. The problem is what happens when thousands make the same call at once. Falling prices were cited as an influence by 30% of respondents, alongside rate uncertainty at 32% and scarce or unsuitable stock at 31%. Those factors overlap and reinforce one another.
The loop has an exit, though. It ends when buyers stop expecting further falls, and that usually needs a trigger: a clearer rate path, a visible price floor, or a policy change. Our guide to budget, policy and government housing schemes covers the policy levers that tend to matter most for first-timers.
The numbers pull in two directions
The lender’s own applications look like a recovery. Its four-week rolling average, to the week ending 2 October, sat 5% below pre-budget levels. In July the gap was 20%. On that measure, activity is climbing back from a low.
Broader credit data tells a harder story. Equifax showed national mortgage demand for September 2026 down 19.2% on the same month a year earlier, with first-home buyer applications down 22.1%.
Both can be true. A single lender recovering from a trough, while the market overall remains well below last year, is what a slow thaw looks like. Commentary on this has split along predictable lines: one camp reads the recovery as the bottom forming, the other reads the year-on-year drop as proof that buyers remain locked out. The honest reading is that the recovery is real but starts from a low base.
Some buyers are adapting rather than waiting
Not everyone is sitting still. Lower offers look feasible to around 19% of respondents. Another 17% are adjusting their deposit targets, and 16% are considering suburbs that were previously out of reach. These are the buyers worth watching, because they are the first to turn intention into transactions.
A buyer who revises a deposit target or lowers an offer is not waiting for the market to come to them. They are adjusting to it. If that group grows, it becomes the early signal that the loop is loosening.
Pent-up demand and the new-home pipeline
Waiting does not delete demand. It defers it. Buyers who stay out of the market now still need somewhere to live, and many will rent in the meantime, which keeps pressure on rental markets.
The supply side matters here. Developers need confidence in future sales before they commit to new projects, and a long stretch of buyer hesitation weakens that confidence. If starts slow now, completions slow later, which can leave a thinner pipeline just as demand returns. Our look at how Queensland apartment developers are squeezed by construction costs shows how fragile project feasibility already is. The same logic applies to build-to-rent projects stalled on costs, tax and finance.
The risk is a bunching effect. Demand that has been held back for months can arrive quickly once confidence returns, and it meets supply that was not built during the lull. That does not guarantee a price surge, but it does mean the rebound may be sharper than the slow slide that preceded it.
What to do if you are one of the three in four
If you are waiting, be clear about what you are waiting for. A price level, a rate level, and a date are three different conditions, and treating them as one is how people stay on the sidelines for years.
Write down the price you would act at, the repayment you can carry at today’s rates plus a buffer, and the deposit you need to hit. Then check whether your waiting is actually improving any of those numbers. If it is, keep going. If rent is eating your savings faster than prices are falling, the maths may have already turned against you.
Subscribe to the newsletter for the weekly signal on rates, prices and policy.
General info, not financial advice.
