The 2026 Benchmarking Verdict: What 1.4 Million Lots Reveal About Where Strata is Heading

← ContentPublishedPublished 01 Mar 2026, 00:00

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title: "The 2026 Benchmarking Verdict: What 1.4 Million Lots Reveal About Where Strata is Heading"
subtitle: "The Macquarie Bank 2026 Strata Industry Benchmarking Report surveyed more than 200 businesses managing 1.4 million lots, over 65% of Australia's strata sector. The data is in. Here's what it confirms about the themes we've been tracking, what it challenges, and what it means for technology and platform strategy in the year ahead."
image: /assets/images/insights/benchmarking-verdict-hero.svg
image_alt: "The 2026 Benchmarking Verdict, Macquarie Bank Industry Data Dashboard"
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Every year, the Macquarie Bank Strata Industry Benchmarking Report provides the closest thing the Australian strata sector has to an industry-wide MRI. The 2026 edition, covering more than 200 businesses and 1.4 million lots under management, is the most comprehensive yet, and the data confirms several of the structural shifts we've been writing about in these Insights since early 2026.

This article doesn't rehash what we've already published. Instead, it maps the Macquarie data against the themes in our existing articles, showing where the benchmarking evidence supports our analysis, where it adds new dimensions, and where it reveals gaps that the industry still needs to address.
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heading: "1. The Margin Squeeze is Confirmed"
body: |
  In our February article [The Efficiency Ceiling](/insights/efficiency-ceiling.html), we argued that linear headcount growth was failing enterprise strata firms, that revenue increases were being consumed by wage inflation and compliance costs, compressing margins despite rising fees.

The Macquarie data validates this thesis definitively.
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:::data_table
heading: "Macquarie 2026, The Margin Story"
variant: accent
rows:
  - { label: "REVENUE", tone: go, value: "$528 per lot, up 17% from 2022", support: "Revenue per lot has risen. Management fees are increasing across the board.", result: "On paper, the industry is growing" }
  - { label: "MARGINS", tone: caution, value: "19.4% EBITDA industry-wide", support: "Businesses managing 10,000+ lots have the lowest median EBITDA at just 16.4%. Overall margins have fallen 42% since 2005.", result: "Scale is not protecting profitability" }
  - { label: "WAGES", tone: caution, value: "52% of total revenue", support: "Staff salaries now consume 52% of total revenue industry-wide. NSW is the most labour-intensive market at 56%.", result: "The wage-to-revenue ratio is the silent margin killer" }
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The implication is clear: fees are rising, but costs are rising faster. As we wrote in [The Efficiency Ceiling](/insights/efficiency-ceiling.html), the only sustainable path is to decouple revenue growth from headcount growth. The Macquarie data now puts hard numbers behind that argument.
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heading: "2. Productivity is Rising, But Not Because of Headcount"
body: |
  One of the most encouraging data points in the Macquarie report is the productivity shift. The average strata business now manages **415 lots per FTE**, up from 349 in 2022, a 19% improvement. Individual strata managers handle an average of **890 lots each**.

This is evidence that automation is working. Firms are managing more with less, and the productivity gains are showing up in the benchmarking data.

This directly supports the thesis in our articles on [The Supplier Invoice Black Hole](/insights/supplier-invoice-black-hole.html) and [From Admin Manager to Growth Leader](/insights/admin-to-growth-leader.html), that automation doesn't reduce headcount, it increases output per head. The firms achieving 415+ lots per FTE aren't working their staff harder; they're eliminating the manual touchpoints that consumed their time.
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heading: "3. AI is Everywhere, But Not Where You'd Expect"
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  Perhaps the most striking finding in the Macquarie report: **80% of strata businesses are now using AI tools**. A further **24% are deploying AI agents**, autonomous systems that execute tasks rather than just assisting with them.

But here's the nuance: the report shows that AI adoption is concentrated in communication drafting, templating, and intake functions. The compliance-critical workflows, trust accounting, levy calculation, financial reporting, remain overwhelmingly rules-based.

This aligns precisely with the architecture we described in [Deterministic vs Probabilistic](/insights/deterministic-vs-probabilistic.html): AI excels at reading and writing, but the financial and compliance engine must remain deterministic. The Macquarie data confirms that the industry agrees, even as AI adoption accelerates, firms are keeping it away from the calculations that carry statutory liability.
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heading: "4. Turnover is Improving, But Still Elevated"
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  Strata manager turnover has fallen to **24%**, down from 33% in 2022. That's progress, but it remains well above the national workforce average of approximately 15%.

The Macquarie report also reveals that higher-performing firms retain **83% of their strata managers**, compared with 76% for the rest of the industry. The performance gap is widening, and retention is a leading indicator.

This reinforces what we explored in [The Onboarding Trap](/insights/onboarding-trap.html): if the first 48 hours of a building's lifecycle are chaotic and manual, the downstream effects compound, not just in data quality, but in staff stress and burnout. Automation that eliminates onboarding friction directly contributes to retention.
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heading: "5. The Technology Stack is Expanding"
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  The average strata business now uses **5.1 technology tools**, up from 4 in 2022. Businesses managing 10,000+ lots use an average of **6.2 tools**. Technology investment is accelerating, with 38% of businesses spending $50,000 to $100,000 on technology annually, and 31% of large businesses spending more than $500,000.

This is a direct validation of the connected architecture thesis we outlined in [The Integration Imperative](/insights/integration-imperative.html). The industry is not converging on a single monolithic platform. It is expanding into an ecosystem of specialised tools, and the platform that wins is the one that connects them, not the one that tries to replace them.
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:::text
heading: "6. What the Report Reveals, But We Haven't Covered Yet"
body: "The Macquarie data also highlights two structural shifts that our existing Insights haven't yet addressed in detail:"
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:::data_table
heading: "Emerging Themes from the Macquarie 2026 Data"
variant: standard
rows:
  - { label: "INSURANCE", tone: go, value: "24% of businesses now charge an insurance fee", support: "Rather than receiving commission income, a significant transparency shift. Insurance revenue as a proportion of total revenue has declined from 18% to 16%. The Macquarie report describes insurance as an industry battleground.", result: "Platform implications: automated insurance workflow, fee-based billing models, and compliance tracking" }
  - { label: "FEE MODELS", tone: go, value: "92% of businesses now charge additional fees", support: "Beyond base management fees, up from 66% in 2022. Revenue from disbursements has grown 43%, and other charges have grown 46%. Meanwhile, 23% of businesses are experimenting with all-inclusive flat-fee models.", result: "Platform implications: flexible billing engines, disbursement automation, and contract management at scale" }
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These shifts matter for platform strategy. The insurance transparency trend demands automated work order and invoicing workflows that can handle fee-based models, capabilities we detailed in [The Trust Accounting Automation Playbook](/insights/trust-accounting-automation-playbook.html). And the fee structure evolution requires billing engines that can adapt to multiple models across hundreds of schemes without manual reconfiguration.
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heading: The State-Level Picture
body: "The Macquarie report also provides state-level snapshots that enrich the jurisdictional context:"
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:::data_table
heading: "State Benchmarks, Macquarie 2026"
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  - { label: "NSW", tone: go, value: "$572 revenue per lot (highest nationally)", support: "20% profit margin, 56% salary-to-revenue (highest), 785 lots per strata manager.", result: "Most complex regulatory framework, highest costs, highest revenue" }
  - { label: "VIC", tone: go, value: "$514 revenue per lot, 24.7% profit margin (highest nationally)", support: "8.4% lot growth, 17% strata manager turnover (lowest).", result: "Best margins, strongest growth, lowest turnover" }
  - { label: "QLD", tone: go, value: "$468 revenue per lot", support: "Strong lot growth trajectory, emerging regulatory complexity.", result: "Growth market with evolving compliance requirements" }
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Victoria's combination of the highest profit margins, strongest lot growth, and lowest staff turnover suggests that the state's regulatory framework and market conditions are currently the most favourable for enterprise strata firms, a data point worth watching as VIC's 2025 legislative reforms take effect.
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:::text
heading: The Bottom Line
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  The Macquarie Bank 2026 Strata Industry Benchmarking Report confirms what we've been writing about: margins are under pressure, productivity gains are coming from automation not headcount, AI is being adopted carefully, and the technology stack is expanding into a connected ecosystem.

The firms that are outperforming, maintaining margins above the median, retaining staff, growing portfolios, share a common trait. They have invested in technology that eliminates manual processing at the operational baseline, freeing their teams to focus on the high-value work that justifies premium fees and prevents client churn.
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:::pullquote
quote: "The data is in. The question is no longer whether to automate, it's how fast you can get there."
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:::references
items:
  - text: "Macquarie Bank, 2026 Strata Industry Benchmarking Report (January 2026), survey of 200+ businesses managing 1.4 million lots, covering revenue, margin, productivity, technology adoption, and state-level benchmarks"
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Baseline snapshot for staged publishing (B1.5)
system · 02 July 2026, 05:15
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Heal (D-OPS-86): remove the retired hero eyebrow field from insights records; eyebrow is superseded by the record category chips on the insights layout.
system · 06 July 2026, 10:17

The 2026 Benchmarking Verdict: What 1.4 Million Lots Reveal About Where Strata is Heading

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