A rocky month for auction clearance rates and home sales has left REA Group down 11 per cent from where it was 30 days ago. We ask our experts if the dip is still dipping for the property listing business or if it still has further to slide.
The property listings giant has had a rough 2026. REA Group shares were down about 24 per cent for the year as at early June, a slide that has wiped out a chunk of the premium the market usually pays for the business, and the stock has kept falling since.
On Switzer TV this week, that fall produced two different reads on the same stock.
To buy or to wait?
Rudi Filapek-Vandyck, of FNArena, thinks the selling has gone too far. He sees a quality business trading cheaper than it should, and he is not worried about the threat that a rival platform could spring up and erode REA’s dominance.
“I think it’s heavily into value here,” Filapek-Vandyck said. “The market is far too simplistic in believing two young guys in a garage will build a competing platform … The shares are down about 24 per cent this year … this too shall pass.”
The point underneath the quote is about REA’s moat. Its scale in property listings is hard to replicate, so a falling share price, on this view, is an opportunity rather than a warning.
Adam Dawes, of Shaw and Partners, is not convinced it’s time to buy. He set aside the fashionable worry that artificial intelligence will hollow out REA’s business and pointed instead at the housing market itself.
“I’m neutral,” Dawes said. “The fear that large language models take their lunch is overdone. The real issue is that auction clearance rates have come back from around 80 per cent to the 40s and 50s, and that does affect REA’s model. I want to see clearance rates turn back up before getting back in.”
REA makes its money from property listings and from the depth of product agents buy to promote them. When fewer homes sell under the hammer, vendors hesitate, agents win fewer listings, and the premium products get harder to sell. Clearance rates are a live read on all of that.
The number we’re watching
Dawes is watching clearance rates because they have just fallen hard. The preliminary combined capital city clearance rate was 51.1 per cent in the week ending 7 June 2026, the lowest reading since the week ending 26 April 2020, according to Cotality. The prior week’s final figure landed at 49 per cent, the first time the final capital city rate had sat below 50 per cent since May 2020.
That fall toward 50, from the 60s and 70s readings of recent years, is the shift Dawes wants to see reverse before he changes his rating.
That sets up a clear test for the two views. Filapek-Vandyck is buying the business through the cycle and betting the listings weakness passes. Dawes wants the cycle to turn first. The next run of weekend clearance data tells you which way the wind is blowing.
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