Under 1% of borrowers in negative equity, RBA finds. Gold Coast stock is rising as homes take longer to sell

The Reserve Bank of Australia released its October 2026 Financial Stability Review on Thursday 1 October.¹ It estimates that less than 1 per cent of Australian borrowers owe more on their loan than their home is worth, and that even after a further uniform fall in housing prices of 20 per cent, "only around 5 per cent of mortgages would fall into negative equity".² The review came two days after the RBA lifted the cash rate to 4.60%, its fourth increase this year.^3,2

Those figures speak to a specific worry that comes up in a lot of conversations right now: that owners who can no longer afford their mortgage will be forced to sell, and that a wave of forced sales will flood the market. On the Gold Coast, the number of homes for sale has risen sharply this year. This piece looks at what the RBA measured about forced selling, and at which homes are actually behind the rise in local stock.

First, what the review does not say

The review is not a statement that prices will hold. Prices are already falling nationally. Cotality's Home Value Index fell 1.1% in September, the sixth straight monthly fall, leaving national values 5.2% below their March peak. Brisbane recorded the steepest monthly fall of the capitals, at 1.5%.⁴ The RBA itself notes that its housing price-at-risk modelling suggests "downside risks to prices are currently elevated".²

What the review addresses is narrower: whether borrowers can keep paying, and whether, if they can't, they could sell and clear their loan. That is the mechanism behind forced selling.

What the RBA measured

Equity matters because of how forced sales happen. The RBA notes that negative equity on its own is "insufficient to trigger default if borrowers remain able to service their loans", and that if a borrower could no longer pay and had to sell, "the vast majority would have enough equity to repay their loans in full".² For that borrower a sale would be difficult and disruptive, in the RBA's words, but most would be able to clear the loan.

There are limits to read alongside these numbers. They are national estimates, built from the RBA's securitisation data, and the review gives no breakdown for Queensland or the Gold Coast. The RBA's own release says there are "pockets of stress".¹ In its severe scenario, with unemployment rising to 6.3 per cent and the cash rate to 5.6 per cent, the share of mortgagors at higher risk of default rises to around 5 per cent.² And the review names one group whose selling could add to stock: "In periods of declining housing prices, investors may be less willing to enter the market and more inclined to sell properties to limit losses."² It adds that most investors hold considerable equity, and that the grandfathering of negative gearing could motivate some to hold on.

What is behind the rise in Gold Coast stock

In September 2026 there were 8,029 homes for sale across 22 Gold Coast postcodes, up from 5,779 in September 2025, an increase of 38.9%.⁵ The more useful question is which listings grew. SQM Research classifies every listing by how long it has been on the market.

SQM Research total property listings, all dwelling types, summed across 22 Gold Coast postcodes, monthly to September 2026.

About six in ten of the extra listings (1,367 of 2,250) are homes that have been for sale for more than two months. Fresh listings did rise as well: September's 2,705 homes listed for under 30 days was the highest monthly count this year and 19% above September 2025. But most of the build-up is homes that came to market and have not yet sold.

That matches what Cotality describes across the capitals, where new listings in September were 9.2% lower than a year earlier while total inventory was 23.1% higher: "Despite fewer new listings entering the market, inventory levels have risen sharply because the rate of sale has fallen even faster."⁴

For context, the September 2026 total is the highest September count since 2020, and still below every September from 2011 to 2020, when between 10,112 and 13,952 homes were for sale in the same postcodes.⁵

Robina, Varsity Lakes and Burleigh Waters

SQM Research total property listings, all dwelling types, by postcode. Postcode areas are wider than the suburbs they are named after.

The Robina postcode has seen the biggest rise of the three, and the Burleigh postcode the smallest.

Slower sales and forced sales are different signals

A forced sale happens when an owner must sell whatever price they can get. A slow market is one where owners who choose to sell are waiting longer for a buyer, and can usually adjust their price, withdraw or wait. Both add to the count of homes for sale, which is why a rising stock figure on its own doesn't say which one is happening.

No public data source counts forced sales on the Gold Coast. One narrow check is how homes are advertised. Across the 2,799 homes our own listing records showed as for sale in the 68 Gold Coast suburbs we track, as last refreshed on 4 October 2026, none was advertised as a mortgagee sale.⁶ Agents do not always label a mortgagee sale, so this is a floor rather than a count, but it is consistent with the RBA's national picture.

Cotality's October report reaches a similar view on the cause: relatively low unemployment "should limit the risk of a material rise in mortgage arrears or forced selling", while it adds that a more pronounced deterioration in labour market conditions would add to the downside risks.⁴ That is Cotality's assessment, not ours. It does point to the indicator that would change the picture: the RBA links borrowers' ability to keep paying to the strength of the labour market.²

What a build-up like this has been associated with

Rising stock from slower sales is still a supply build-up, and supply has its own history. Cotality says the current accumulation leaves buyers with "more choice, reduced urgency, and greater scope to negotiate, while vendors are having to become more realistic about their price expectations".⁴

On the Gold Coast, the last comparable run-up was in 2022, when homes listed 60 to 180 days rose 55% between March and August. Over the following year, annual growth in our Gold Coast composite price measure slowed from 34.6% to 3.3%.⁷ Two cautions apply, as set out in our earlier look at unsold stock: 2022 was also the year rate rises began, so the two cannot be separated, and growth on that measure slowed but stayed positive. A rise in unsold stock has preceded slower price growth before. On this series it has not, by itself, reliably preceded falling prices.

Put together, the national evidence in the review points to borrowers who are mostly able to keep paying and mostly hold equity. The local evidence points to stock building because homes are taking longer to sell. Those are separate indicators, and the next Financial Stability Review, along with the monthly listing counts, will show whether either moves.

I track these supply indicators each month. I walk through what they are showing in this short video on what to watch in the Gold Coast market, and in more depth on the Gold Coast market page. If you would like to see how your own home sits against recent sales nearby, enter your address here.

1. Release of Financial Stability Review – October 2026. Reserve Bank of Australia, Media Release 2026-28, 1 October 2026. ↩
2. 2. Resilience of Australian Households and Businesses. Reserve Bank of Australia, Financial Stability Review, October 2026. National estimates; negative-equity and scenario figures use the RBA's Securitisation System data. ↩
3. Statement by the Monetary Policy Board: Monetary Policy Decision. Reserve Bank of Australia, Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026. ↩
4. Cotality Home Value Index, October 2026. Cotality, released 1 October 2026, data to 30 September 2026. Includes commentary by Tim Lawless and Cotality's outlook. ↩
5. Total property listings, by postcode. SQM Research. All dwelling types, monthly counts by time on market, summed by Fields Real Estate across 22 Gold Coast postcodes; series from January 2010 to September 2026, retrieved 1 October 2026. ↩
6. Fields Real Estate listing records. 2,799 Gold Coast homes marked for sale across 68 suburbs, listing data last refreshed 4 October 2026; advertising text searched for mortgagee-sale wording. ↩
7. Fields Gold Coast composite price measure and SQM listing-age series. Fields Real Estate. Transaction-weighted combination of rolling twelve-month median sale prices across 63 Gold Coast suburbs, annual change, March quarter 2022 to June quarter 2023; listings 60 to 180 days from SQM Research, March and August 2022. ↩