There has been no shortage of negative commentary around commercial property over the past few years.
In 2024, we heard “survive till ’25”. Then 2025 arrived, and apparently that was difficult too. Now we are well into 2026, and much of the commentary remains the same.
Perhaps we need to consider another possibility. This is simply a normal commercial property market, and the indicators are increasingly pointing in the right direction.
I came away from our recent RWC conference with a genuine sense of optimism. Not because anyone thinks the challenges have disappeared, but because the conversations happening between agents, investors, financiers and business leaders increasingly don't match the doom and gloom we continue to hear.
Real Capital Analytics is reporting a significant increase in Australian commercial transaction volumes in 2026 compared with last year. Capital is moving again, buyers and sellers are finding each other, and liquidity is returning.
We're seeing the same thing within our own business.
In July, the Ray White Commercial network transacted in excess of 700 million dollars of commercial property and generated an increase of sales and leasing income of almost 6 per cent compared to July last year.
That's worth considering. July 2025 was supposedly a stronger market, yet our network generated more commission in July 2026.
And in some sectors, demand isn't simply recovering. It is extremely strong.
Across our network, we are experiencing far and away the strongest demand we have ever seen for reasonably good-quality industrial property. Well-located, functional industrial assets priced sensibly continue to attract serious competition.
Although this is a specific segment of the market that economic factors are providing a significant boost to, we are still well ahead of where we were even during the 2021 Covid boom.
Of course, transactions require more work than they did when money was virtually free and before the Federal Government seemed determined to make the average Australian “property investor” a dirty word through its tax policy. Buyers are more selective, vendors need to be realistic, and finance is more considered.
But perhaps that buyer behaviour is somewhat ok.
A normal commercial property market should reward good assets, good information and good operators. It should require expertise to bring buyers and sellers together. And it will in turn punish poor pricing and less favourably positioned assets.
Increasingly, that's the market I think we're in.
The next piece of the puzzle is construction.
If construction costs and delivery conditions begin to stabilise while demand remains strong and transaction volumes continue improving, the next 12 months could become particularly interesting.
In some markets, constrained new supply, improving liquidity, pent-up private capital and resilient occupier demand could create the conditions for something approaching a purple patch.
Not every asset class and not every location will participate equally. But I think there is considerably more reason for optimism than much of the current commentary suggests.
After three or four years of waiting for commercial property to “come back”, perhaps we've been asking the wrong question.
The market is already moving.
And I suspect the next 12 months could be considerably better than many people expect.