TLDR
A Resolve Political Monitor poll published 14 July 2026 found 61 per cent of Australians support falling house prices, a majority that cuts across party lines and even includes property investors. Backing is strongest among committed Labor voters at 73 per cent, but Coalition and One Nation voters also returned majorities in favour of lower prices. The federal government has already moved to reshape the tax settings that propped up investor demand for decades, limiting negative gearing to new builds and overhauling the capital gains tax discount from 1 July 2027. Public sentiment is now running ahead of reform, not against it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What the poll found
For a long time, rising house prices felt like the one thing Australians could agree on wanting. That assumption has cracked. A Resolve Political Monitor poll published 14 July 2026 found 61 per cent of respondents supported a decline in house pricesverifiedVerified Source: mpamag.com.[1] That is a clear majority in a nationally representative sample.
The breakdown by political affiliation is where things get interesting. Backing for lower prices was strongest among committed Labor voters at 73 per cent, but majorities of Coalition voters (58 per cent) and One Nation voters (55 per cent) also supported a declineverifiedVerified Source: mpamag.com.[1] When the base of three different parties, including one that has historically skewed toward older homeowners, all say they want prices down, the political calculus on housing has genuinely changed.
The figure that most upends conventional wisdom: 66 per cent of property investors said they wanted prices to fallverifiedVerified Source: mpamag.com.[1] The standard argument against housing reform has long rested on the idea that property owners, investors especially, would punish any government that let prices slip. That argument now looks like it was always more about Canberra's assumptions than about what Australians actually thought.
Why the shift matters
For decades, Australian housing policy was quietly built around a single premise: rising property values were good for the country, or at least good for enough voters that no government would risk the alternative. Negative gearing allowed investors to offset losses against ordinary income, and a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount made property the most tax-advantaged asset class available to ordinary Australians. First-home buyers squeezed out of the market were a political problem to be managed with grants and concessions, not with cheaper houses.
A generation of workers who cannot afford to buy in the cities where they work has now reached voting age in significant numbers. Renters who watched their cost of living climb while their landlords' paper wealth grew have stopped believing the old bargain was fair. The poll result reflects something that has been building in households and share houses for years, even if it is only now showing up cleanly in the numbers.
The tax reform backdrop
The federal government moved on the two central pillars of investor tax advantage in the space of a few weeks in mid-2026. On 19 May 2026, the government announced that negative gearing for residential property investments would be limited to new builds from 1 July 2027.[2] The said aim was to redirect investor demand away from existing stock and toward new supply, easing competition for the homes that first-home buyers are chasing.
On 8 June 2026, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the 50 per cent CGT discount for individuals, trusts and partnerships would be replaced with cost base indexation and a 30 per cent minimum tax rate, also from 1 July 2027.[3] Together the two measures dismantle the tax architecture that channelled private capital into existing residential property for the better part of three decades. Whether they prove sufficient to move the dial on affordability is a separate question; their political significance is already clear.
What economists say
Peter Tulip, chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, was direct about where he stands. "Last month's fall in house prices is good news. Further falls would be welcome. Politicians and media headlines avoid saying this, but it is what most Australians think."[4] The Resolve poll, published after that comment, suggests Tulip had read the public mood accurately.
Tulip also pushed back on the debate over causation. "Whether the latest falls in house prices are attributed to interest rates (as the research says) or to tax changes (which research says is unlikely), we should be able to agree they are a good thing."[4] The affordability case does not depend on pinning the correction to one policy lever. Lower prices are the point, not the mechanism.
Where prices are heading
Price falls are already underway in parts of the market, with softening clearance rates and early corrections feeding into market expectations ahead of the July 2027 tax changes. The reform package was announced months before it takes effect, giving investors time to adjust their positions and giving the broader market time to price in the new settings.
The political landscape that shaped three decades of housing policy has shifted in a way that is now difficult to reverse. When a majority of property investors themselves say they want prices lower, the old coalition of interests that kept reform off the table has broken apart. The federal government's changes take full effect from 1 July 2027.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What did the Resolve Political Monitor poll find about Australian attitudes to house prices?
What tax changes did the federal government announce for property investors?
Why do economists like Peter Tulip say falling house prices are a good thing?
Gavin O'Malley covers property and housing for Bushletter. He writes from the ground level, sceptical of spin and focused on what buyers and builders actually face.
