A gauge of property’s true value as an investment can be a vexed question in a debate about whether it’s better to place your money in real estate or the stock market.
The old chestnut that you can’t live in a share portfolio is often countered by the observation that you can’t sell half a bathroom if you need cash quickly.
Both arguments are true, of course, and we’re sure you’ll recognise which is more persuasive.
Property is certainly proving to be a profitable venture for most Australians. An incredible 94.9% of all residential sales made in the first quarter of this year represented a profit for the owner.
The figure comes from the industry researcher Cotality (formerly known as CoreLogic). It studied 86,000 sales nationwide and calculated the median gain at $305,000.
The result was the first fall in the nominal gain average since March 2023, reflecting the sluggish few weeks the property market endured at the turn of the year.
However, that’s all behind us. Since the Reserve Bank of Australia began cutting the cash rate from 4.65% to 3.85%, the market mood has brightened and prices are now up 1.3% in the three months to the end of May.
Houses are proving to be the most reliable when it comes to a profitable sale.
Some 97.2% of sales stayed in the black compared with 90.1% for apartments. Cotality says the median resale gain for houses was $355,000 – 73% higher than the $205,000 gain registered by apartments.
Cotality said in a statement this result “aligns with a persistent underperformance in the unit sector: over the decade to March 2025, national house values rose 80.2%, more than twice the 37.7% gain in unit values”.
One reason for this trend is likely to be an oversupply of apartments.
For investors, it’s worth noting more than one in four unit resales that made a loss occurred in four Local Government Areas – Melbourne, Parramatta, Port Phillip and Stonnington.
Resale values were especially strong in regional Australia, where value trends are outperforming metro areas. Some 96.5% of resales yielded a profit in regional Australia, compared with 93.9% in capital cities.
Cotality says that $400,000-plus profits were recorded in Noosa in Queensland and Busselton in Western Australia.
“Noosa had the biggest uplift in median profit, from $239,000 in March 2020 to $617,500 in March 2025,” Cotality said.
Brisbane claimed the top spot for profit-making resales, with almost all deals making a nominal gain (99.7%). Adelaide recorded 98.9%, followed by Perth (97.9%). This reflects each city’s powerful run of value increases in the past 18 months.
With home values across Australia now showing positive signs of accelerating growth, Cotality predicts an increasing percentage of property deals will prove profitable for the rest of the year.