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On this week’s episode of Broker Daily Uncut, Finni brokers Costa Arvanitopoulos and Robert Lee unpacked the data and what the trends mean for client behaviour and borrowing capacity.
“This data is a bit eye-catching,” Arvanitopoulos said.
“We look a lot at house prices, supply levels and auction clearance rates, but this gives us a different view. I think there are a lot of ways to interpret the results.”
The analysis, based on six years of movement data from findamover.com.au, captures more than 250,000 residential moves across five capital cities between January 2020 and December 2025.
Each move is classified by combining suburb-level origin and destination data with property type and bedroom count, benchmarked against Cotality median price data to estimate whether borrowers are moving up or down the property ladder.
The resulting metric – the property ladder gap – measures the percentage of higher-value moves minus lower-value moves in each quarter, offering an indicator for borrower confidence, serviceability, and upgrade capacity.
The dataset spans three distinct interest rate environments: the emergency-low rate period from 2020 to early 2022, the aggressive tightening cycle that lifted the cash rate from 0.10 per cent to 4.35 per cent by late 2023, and the subsequent easing cycle through 2025.
Diverging borrower behaviour across capitals
Despite facing the same monetary policy settings, each capital city recorded markedly different outcomes, which brokers said pointed to structural differences in affordability, economic drivers, and borrower buffers.
Melbourne emerged as the outlier, recording a positive property ladder gap in every quarter across the six-year period – the only city to avoid any reversal in upgrade activity.
“Melbourne is the one that hasn’t broken. To a point, that doesn’t surprise me,” Arvanitopoulos said.
“It has been the city that really suffered through COVID, and the property market there has had a lot of challenges, new taxes and other changes.
“I think it’s actually a good time, if you’re a resident in Melbourne, to upgrade and purchase a bigger home. I wouldn’t say at a discounted price, but at a fair price.
“When I first heard it, I was wondering, why Melbourne? But once you start unpacking the data, it doesn’t surprise me.”
Brisbane followed as the next most consistent market, maintaining positive movement through the last in the 2022–23 rate hike cycle before recording a single negative quarter during the easing phase.
By contrast, Sydney, Perth, and Adelaide all recorded multiple periods where more borrowers moved down the property ladder than up.
Sydney entered the current cycle with negative quarters persisting even when rates were falling.
“Sydney is a very expensive city to purchase in. So upgrading your property there is very difficult,” Arvanitopoulos said.
He noted that given the high value market in Sydney, some may be incentivised to downsize to free up capital or reduce costs.
“If you’re in that boomer age group – selling a large home and downgrading – it’s a good time to buy,” Arvanitopoulos said.
“You can sell for $3–4 million, then buy an apartment for $2 million, downsize, and still have $2 million in your pocket. You get apartment living, less maintenance, and extra cash. So that doesn’t surprise me either when you look at that metric.”
Meanwhile, Lee noted that Sydney’s housing market sees fewer upgraders, even when rates are low.
“People are always hesitant to purchase or clear larger properties in Sydney. It really shows that both investors and owner-occupiers are looking at other states. Sydney is probably the last market they consider, mainly due to price and affordability,” Lee said.
“It’s really a market you’d only consider if you have strong cash flow or serviceability.”
Adelaide was the most volatile market in the dataset and the only city to show signs of structural weakness prior to the rate hiking cycle, while Perth recorded sharp swings despite strong house price growth.
“Perth’s result might be because of house prices, supply issues and a flood of investors coming in,” Arvanitopoulos said.
“Adelaide is harder to understand. I guess it’s a mix of factors – possibly supply constraints and other material drivers.”
With the cash rate now back at 4.10 per cent and potentially rising further, the data provides a framework for how different markets may respond under this renewed pressure.
Arvanitopoulos added: “It will be interesting to see where this goes next. We’ll probably see some of these factors again coming into focus.”
[Related: Brokers told to act early as lending landscape shifts]
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