Melbourne, May 4, 2026, 07:07 (AEST)
- REA Group urged lawmakers to replace stamp duty, ease housing-density rules and expand finance options for first-home buyers.
- The push lands days before the realestate.com.au owner is due to report March-quarter results.
- Fresh PropTrack data showed national home prices fell in April for the first time this year.
REA Group Ltd has pushed deeper into Australia’s housing affordability debate, urging a Senate inquiry to replace stamp duty with a broad-based land tax and remove barriers to denser housing in well-connected suburbs.
The move matters now because REA’s main business is tied to property market activity: more confident buyers, sellers and agents usually mean more listings, more advertising and more demand for data and finance products. The company’s submission was published as investors wait for its March-quarter update later this week.
REA said it will release results for the quarter ended March 31 on Friday, May 8, with Chief Executive Cameron McIntyre and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Cramer scheduled to host a briefing at 9:00 a.m. AEST. The company operates realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au, Flatmates.com.au and property.com.au, and also owns Mortgage Choice and PropTrack.
Stamp duty is an upfront state tax paid on property purchases. REA wants it replaced with a land tax, a recurring charge based on land value, arguing the current system adds to the cost of moving and blocks some younger buyers from entering the market.
The company also backed more social and affordable housing, federal incentives for state and local planning reform, and longer 35- or 40-year loan terms for first-home buyers only. Longer loans can cut monthly repayments, but they also keep borrowers in debt for longer.
REA’s submission said housing affordability was near record lows, with a median-income household able to afford 15% of homes sold across Australia in 2024-25, down from 43% four years earlier. It also said buyers in Melbourne and Sydney now face stamp-duty bills equal to about six months of full-time after-tax income.
The latest market data gives the policy argument more weight. PropTrack’s April Home Price Index, authored by REA Group senior economist Eleanor Creagh, showed national home prices fell 0.1% in April, the first monthly decline of 2026; Sydney fell 0.5% and Melbourne dropped 0.3%. “National home prices edged lower in April, suggesting a turning point in the housing cycle,” Creagh wrote.
REA is not alone in watching that shift. CoStar-owned Domain remains its closest domestic portal rival, and CoStar said after completing its Domain acquisition last year that it planned to accelerate technology and customer tools in Australia. CoStar CEO Andy Florance said the group was building “a more compelling user experience at a lower cost.” CoStar Group
That competitive backdrop gives REA’s policy stance a commercial edge. A healthier housing market can feed listing volumes, while affordability stress can slow transactions and leave agents more sensitive to portal fees.
But the reforms are far from certain. Stamp-duty changes have been politically hard for Australian states, and longer mortgage terms may lift borrowing capacity without fixing housing supply. If prices keep slipping in Sydney and Melbourne, sellers may hold back, which would test listing momentum before the May 8 update.
Investors will be looking for signs of how much weaker buyer confidence has flowed into March-quarter advertising, data and mortgage activity. They will also watch whether management says Domain’s new CoStar backing is changing agent pricing or product spending.
For REA, housing policy is no side issue. It sits close to the transaction engine that powers the group’s portals, data products and finance arm.
