Brisbane’s housing shortage isn’t just about supply it’s about what’s actually making it to completion.
In this episode, we unpack the real issue behind the numbers, including:
- The widening gap between approvals, construction, and completed homes
- Why many approved projects never get built
- How rising construction costs and feasibility challenges are slowing supply
- What current demand and population growth mean for housing pressure in Brisbane
- How buyer behaviour is shifting in today’s market
- The flow-on effect this imbalance is having on property prices heading into 2026
If you’re planning to buy or invest in Brisbane, this episode will help you understand what’s really happening behind the headlines so you can move forward with clarity and confidence.
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Transcript
0:00: Brisbane’s supply problem is no longer just about whether projects are getting approved.
0:04: It’s about whether they’re financially viable, whether they can secure a builder, and whether they can actually be delivered.
0:11: So today, we’re gonna jump in and have a look at, have a snapshot at the Brisbane apartments.
0:15: So today we’re gonna unpack this and more in the Brisbane Property podcast.
0:19: Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Brisbane Property podcast with Scott and Melinda Jannison, and today we’re going to dive into, An interesting one, we talk about approvals for apartments, supply, all those types of things, and we’re going to dive in today with some report that’s been completed and give you a bit of a snapshot on what’s happening, what’s coming, what approvals are done, the demand and all those types of things for the apartments in Brisbane.
0:43: Yeah, there’s been a few headlines recently in the media about the fact that Brisbane is going to become a much higher density city.
0:51: So we really wanted to, Understand what is that supply pipeline looking like.
0:56: We’re going to have a look at building approvals, but more importantly, how many of those approvals are following through to being building completions, and how many of those are actually available for people to buy, because this is what really matters when it comes to supply.
1:11: And we are going to be looking at research that has been conducted by Urbis on behalf of the Property Council of Australia.
1:18: So these are real numbers in terms of the pipeline for apartments in Brisbane.
1:24: And we’re going to unpack everything that you need to understand if you are considering a purchase in Brisbane in the attached dwelling space in the near future.
1:33: I think we talked to people a lot about how different Brisbane is to other capitals, so our unit space, and then we, we’ll dive in a little bit more, and we’ve talked about this in the past, on the back of 2016, 2017.
1:45: We had cranes in the skies everywhere, there was a lot of developments happening.
1:49: It was a very different skyline, Brisbane back then.
1:51: All of a sudden on the back of that we saw the cranes start to disappear out of the skies.
1:56: Now what we’re seeing on the ground here, you’re seeing scatterings of them around Brisbane and that’s usually an indication for people, like whether we look at the data and we look at all the information here.
2:05: For me driving around Brisbane as a local, if you start to see cranes in the sky, something’s happening.
2:12: There’s developments happening.
2:14: We’re definitely not seeing as much as we did back then.
2:16: So obviously the information, the data and everything we’ve got here today will give you a bit of a, an idea in that, more of a snapshot of it, of what it’s like when it comes to data side of it, but it also, we will dive into things like what is the demand, how much the supply is, how the approvals are looking, construction costs, all those types of things as well.
2:34: Yeah, I think there’s a real difference between a project being announced versus a project being approved by council.
2:40: That’s a development approval being issued, and then of course, The project being under construction, and, of course, the project reaching the stage where it becomes a completed home that someone can actually move into, either as an owner occupier, or as a tenant.
2:54: And that’s what we’re gonna unpack today, and we’re gonna break down where things are untangling in terms of that pipeline.
3:01: So, if we look at the very beginning, and I think that the start of that is obviously the approval side of it.
3:06: So it’s obviously a leading indicator.
3:08: When we start to see approvals come through, people start to go, OK.
3:11: There’s, there’s projects coming.
3:13: Whether they’re gonna go through, we’ll touch a bit more on that in a, in a little bit further, but that is a lead indicator to be able to say, OK, the approvals are starting to happening, and we’re starting to see more projects get planned for Brisbane.
3:24: And look, we know a lot of news reports do talk about national news headlines, what’s happening at a national level in terms of ABS data.
3:31: For example, national dwelling approvals fell 7.2% in January 2026, but approvals for the private sector for dwellings.
3:40: Fell 24.5% in the month.
3:42: So these are some big numbers.
3:44: We want to unpack that to Brisbane today and help you understand some of the numbers that matter for Brisbane, and that’s going to become a lot more relevant.
3:51: And, and obviously, there’s so many things off the back of this when we talk about the supply, the approvals and things like that.
3:56: Now, can you give us a little bit more information when we start to talk about approvals and supply sort of things?
4:02: Absolutely.
4:03: Well, I think in summary, I will lead by saying that the gap between what Brisbane needs and what is, Being delivered is actually not narrowing, it continues to widen.
4:13: That’s probably one of the biggest takeaways from today’s episode.
4:17: Let’s just have a look at what we need.
4:19: Now, we have a South East Queensland regional plan that was issued to the public in 2023, and in that plan, it was, there was an indication that Brisbane was required to deliver around 8000 attached dwellings every year, all the way through to 2031.
4:37: And more than 7100 per year beyond that, just to keep up with population demands.
4:45: Yet, to date we’ve delivered less than half of this target each year since 2019, so we are falling well behind those targets.
4:55: Now if we talk about what’s happened since the COVID pandemic in 2020, and if we look at the four years between then and 2024, inner Brisbane delivered around 1400 apartments per year on average, which is also well below the historical peaks and current requirements.
5:14: So while completions did lift to around 2550 apartments in, 2025, they’re forecast to approach 3000 in 2026.
5:25: Unfortunately, this still leaves an annual shortfall of about 4 to 5000 departments against the target.
5:32: So this is a significant problem.
5:34: Yeah, it’s huge.
5:35: I’ll just remind the listeners, and, and keep, we will touch on this a few times, but, 8000.
5:40: OK, just keep that in your mind, that is what the target is.
5:45: Looking at Brisbane, how we’re growing, how our migration, and again these are all things we’ll touch on through the podcast, but migration, internationally, interstate, those types of things, we’ve got the Olympic Games coming in 2032.
5:57: That’s massive.
5:58: So we are still going to have more and more people moving to Southeast Queensland, so to have a target of 8000 and, We’re way, way below that at the moment, and to be honest, I, I think.
6:12: With a combination of everything happening, I think we’re going to fall well short of it completely.
6:17: Yeah, and it’s a far cry from the development peak that we reached in 2016 and 2017, when Brisbane delivered more than 9000 apartments per year.
6:27: Now, we often talk about that period of time on the podcast, and we were in a period where there was an oversupply of the attached dwellings here in Brisbane, and that put downward pressure on prices.
6:39: Those days are well behind us, and, The information that we’re sharing today really reconfirms the fact that the apartment supply pipeline, it doesn’t look good compared to the projections that have been forecast and compared to what we actually need to deliver, to accommodate our growing population.
6:58: So if we look then, I mean, obviously that’s a, when we talk about that lead indicator and the supply and the approval side of it, I mean, approvals, why are they not turning into completions?
7:09: That, that’s probably one of the, Big things that we, we need to look at as well.
7:12: Yeah, so this is obviously where feasibility of projects becomes really crucial.
7:17: Now, we’ve talked a bit in the past about the fact that construction costs have escalated rapidly off the back of COVID-19.
7:25: Now because of the international unrest and rising oil prices, we’re finding ourselves in a situation yet again, where construction costs are likely to increase significantly, simply because of, The crisis worldwide.
7:41: Now, you know, we’ve just had conversations with people in the industry where we know costs are escalating already.
7:47: I, I actually was speaking to a, quite a, quite a big plumber, and they’ve been already told that April 1st, and this is not an April Fool’s joke, April 1st, PVC piping is going to increase by 40%.
8:01: So that’s, that’s a huge amount, that’s, that’s just PVC pipe.
8:04: That’s nothing else that happens in that manufacturing side of it.
8:07: You’ve got the diesel.
8:08: Costs, you’ve got all those oil costs, escalating, so.
8:11: And let’s not forget the transportation of building materials escalation in price, causes construction costs to increase, and, and not come down, but remain elevated.
8:22: And this is going to continue to put constraints on the feasibility of some of these larger projects.
8:28: Also labor.
8:29: We’re very, very, we’re short on labor, so we, we need more, skilled, tradespeople and and laborers as well.
8:36: so we need that.
8:37: We’ve got construction costs continuing to grow, and it’s making it harder and harder for builders to actually to move ahead and do those projects.
8:44: And it’s hard for, consumers or developers to actually secure a builder for their site, or for their project.
8:50: So, all of these things are reasons why those approved projects are not necessarily translating into constructions or completions, and it’s one of the reasons why we are well behind our targets in terms of what we’re trying to achieve.
9:06: The other The thing is that the time frame between when a site is acquired through to when, the completed project is ready for occupancy, that time frame can vary considerably.
9:20: Now, we are in an environment right now where interest rates are also higher than they were, many years ago.
9:27: So, what that means is for a developer, the cost to hold, throughout that construction and development timeline, is also largely, escalated.
9:37: And again, that adds onto the bottom line in terms of, you know, what a consumer needs to pay for that end product.
9:42: It all needs to be built into the cost of delivering that project.
9:46: So it all looks great on paper, but then it just doesn’t stack up financially.
9:51: So that that’s probably one of the big things we’re seeing with the developer side of things.
9:55: we are still seeing some projects go ahead, don’t get us wrong.
9:58: There are still some big projects happening, some fantastic high-end type of unit apartment projects we’re seeing throughout Brisbane.
10:05: but it definitely makes it a little bit harder to stack it up financially.
10:08: So based on this report by Urbis in conjunction with the Property Council of Australia, we have been seeing, a slight increase in those approvals, but that’s not necessarily translating into increased construction, because many of those approved projects or projects that are even in marketing trying to capture those pre-sales before they commence, they’re failing to proceed because of feasibility challenges.
10:32: So obviously this is going to be something that’s not going away.
10:36: It’s going to escalate further and therefore become more problematic if prices continue to escalate in the future.
10:42: So let’s just jump on now then, and I did touch on a little bit, a little while ago when I talked about population growth, how post-COVID we had a lot of migration.
10:51: It was, it was massive.
10:52: Everyone wanted to live in beautiful sunny Queensland, which is, we don’t, don’t blame them as well for wanting to do that.
10:59: but population growth, obviously that has continued, probably not at the level it was, but we’re still seeing that continue, that population growth.
11:08: Absolutely.
11:08: If we look at Queensland data, Queensland saw levels of migration throughout 2022 and 2023 that far exceeded historic levels.
11:17: Greater Brisbane experienced a substantial rise in net overseas migration in 2023.
11:22: And that’s expected to revert back to levels seen before the pandemic, but net interstate migration in Greater Brisbane reached its peak slightly earlier, and that was in 2022.
11:33: So a lot of people were trying to get out of, especially Victoria, but also New South Wales, and come up to sunny Queensland, and they landed in Greater Brisbane.
11:42: So, the forecast there, though, is to follow a similar downward.
11:45: Trajectory.
11:46: So it’s not expected to be as high in the coming years as it has been off the back of COVID, but what is projected is that Greater Brisbane’s net interstate migration still equates to about, or approximately 80% of the state’s total.
12:02: So people that are coming from other states into Queensland, about 80% of them are landing in.
12:08: Greater Brisbane, and that’s a critical number to understand because a lot of people talk about this net effect where people are migrating to regional areas, but the statistics and the data actually tell a different story.
12:20: And I know that we talked about a lot of people moving, but there’s also overseas people moving.
12:24: So we’ve seen that obviously off the back of COVID, when everything opened up again, our international migration.
12:31: Went through the roof, it, it was crazy, so we’re still seeing that international migration quite high as well.
12:38: Yeah, obviously net overseas migration declined during COVID, but it escalated very rapidly off the back of the borders reopening, and a lot of that was simply because they were used to living in higher density apartments in the countries that they’ve come from.
12:55: We actually attracted a lot of people that were coming to obtain an education, so they were comfortable living.
13:01: In, in that style of accommodation.
13:03: So, the other thing that we’re looking at when we assess these numbers, is the breakdown of, you know, is the population in the future projected to continue to come from overseas, or is it going to be largely interstate migration?
13:17: And the, the figures actually point to more interstate migration rather than overseas migration, noting, of course, that many international migrants typically land in the likes of Sydney and Melbourne first, and then they become Part of that internal migration figure as they relocate to Southeast Queensland.
13:36: So, that’s something to be mindful of, that’s often not picked up in the data.
13:40: And I know that on the back of the, when we talk about the migration side of things, obviously population growing, we talked a little bit about supply as well.
13:47: I mean, even our listings, like we, we, we always talk about this, and we, we talk about this a lot on the podcast, especially when we do our monthly updates.
13:55: We are still at record low listings in Brisbane.
13:58: So you’ve, you’ve got the pressure on the.
14:00: The amount of properties that were actually here, and the amount of people that are coming in to actually supply it, and we can’t deliver it as well.
14:05: So, our listing numbers are record lows, and are still sitting at that level as well.
14:10: Yeah, and I think that, you know, if we want to see, well, who’s purchasing these properties, and what’s the breakdown of that purchaser profile, we’ve seen a changing trend over the last 10 years as well.
14:20: So, certainly since the pandemic, since 2020, those that are willing to live in apartments, as opposed to Houses with a large backyard, the owner-occupier proportion is trending upward.
14:34: Now, that’s different to what a lot of general commentary suggests, but the, the numbers and the facts don’t lie.
14:41: So, since 2020, owner-occupiers purchasing attached dwellings has been on the rise, and it now accounts for more than half of all sales.
14:50: So, between 2021 and 2024, the average proportion of owner-occupiers purchasing apartments was 56% annually.
14:59: And preliminary figures for 2025 have recorded 61% owner occupier activity in the attached dwelling segment.
15:08: Now that is very, very different to what it used to be back 10 years ago.
15:14: Now we can have a look at what interstate investors are doing as well.
15:19: So in 2018 we saw the strongest level of interstate purchasers buying apartments in Brisbane.
15:26: They accounted for 41% of all sales back then, but this number has been declining, and in fact, during 2024, just 11% of purchases were from interstate, and only 5% based on preliminary 2025 data.
15:41: So, the interstate investor has actually been declining.
15:46: The local property investor, that’s remained fairly stable since 2021, accounting for about 28% of buyers.
15:54: And then, The final group, being overseas buyers, that’s been in decline since peaking in 2020.
16:01: Obviously, this aligns with changes to the Foreign Investment Review Board regulations as well, which has limited foreign purchases to new dwellings only.
16:10: But, yeah, the purchase breakdown, has certainly changed, and we’re seeing more and more owner-occupiers getting into the apartment or the attached dwelling market.
16:21: And this is a lifestyle shift.
16:23: That we’ve been talking about and now the data supports it.
16:26: I was, I was just about to say, you took the words out of my mouth there.
16:29: I was about to say very much a, a lifestyle shift in the way that people are living.
16:34: I think that combines a little bit still with when we talk about if you overlap that with the population and the migration side of it.
16:41: And I again we talk about this a lot in Brisbane has previously always been, you’ve got a big plot plot of land and you’ve got your, your fence and you’ve got a big yard where we play cricket and kick the footy around and things like that.
16:53: to people that have moved from areas that are, are used to living in apartments and they have that lifestyle and quite happy to live in apartments as well.
17:01: We’ve also then got a, a change of lifestyle, I think in general, through different generations.
17:07: We want low maintenance, we don’t want all the hassle of mowing the yard and, and mowing that cricket pitch all the time, but I think people want that.
17:15: Simple lifestyle where they can go out to coffee shops and live those lifestyles that way and it’s also an affordable affordability side of things.
17:22: That’s right.
17:22: So we’ve we’ve got the people that are looking to get into the property market that’s increasing and has increased off the back of even like if we go back only as far as COVID, our property market has continued to increase.
17:33: So people want to get into that market, you’ve then got government incentives.
17:38: Under $1 million mark where you get the 5% deposit.
17:42: So those types of things have just added more and more pressure onto that part of the market as well.
17:47: And let’s not forget downsizers are looking for a secure lifestyle, a low maintenance lifestyle, and again, that’s contributing to that shift in terms of more owner-occupiers buying into the attached dwelling.
18:00: Market.
18:01: In terms of the apartment, the stock that is coming, now, on average, 4200 apartments at the end of each year have been under construction over the last seven years.
18:13: So, obviously, that gives you an indication of how many are under construction, remembering, of course, that the target is around 8000 per annum, so, definitely well below target.
18:25: But another very interesting observation and statistic.
18:28: I’d like to share is that the number of completed but unsold projects has decreased significantly, as the market absorbs the available stock.
18:36: Now, this is very similar to listings data.
18:39: Old listings are being absorbed because more and more buyers are purchasing properties that have been on the market for longer.
18:45: So, here, this data supports the fact that when, once a project is completed, very rarely do those properties remain unsold for very long.
18:55: they’re being absorbed by The market, and it’s another indication of the fact that demand is really exceeding supply right now in this segment of the market in Brisbane.
19:03: So obviously, yeah, stock market.
19:06: I mean, what, what about the future side of things?
19:08: We, that’s what we’ve got now, obviously.
19:10: We’ve got a decline.
19:11: So when we look at the future side of it, what does that future pipeline look like?
19:15: So, this is the scary part, and I think this is the big takeaway from this episode.
19:20: Forecast new apartment completions in the coming years from 20.
19:24: 2027 through to 2029 will likely decline with an average of just under 2000 apartment completions earmarked to be completed across those years.
19:35: Remembering the target is can we go back to that 8000 that I mentioned, and there’s a reason I mentioned that 8000 earlier on.
19:42: So 8000 to 2000.
19:45: Wow.
19:45: Yeah, it’s hugely problematic for the growing population that we have here in Brisbane.
19:52: Now, the other really important thing to highlight is that the authors of this research have indicated that 35% of the apartment supply pipeline is considered moderate to high risk, and this is simply because of those feasibility issues that we identified earlier in this podcast.
20:11: Obviously, there’s A huge requirement for us to complete buildings before the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032 as well.
20:20: So, we do expect that project completions will increase.
20:25: We expect more projects to launch in the next 6 to 12 months, but if projects are not locking in builders very soon, They’re not going to be complete before 2032, so there’s going to be a huge drain on subcontractors, on tradesmen across the city.
20:43: You know, obviously they’re going to be competing with Olympic infrastructure projects as well, so that problem is going to become even more acute as we approach.
20:52: 2032.
20:53: So, you know, this is a, a structural undersupply that is not going to be easy to resolve, especially knowing what we need to produce in the years ahead.
21:03: Yeah, I think there’s a combination on that, and I, I think, I know we’ve got different notes here, but I feel like you’re reading my notes all the time here.
21:09: I, I.
21:11: The Olympic side of things, the infrastructure and the stadiums and everything that has to be built along with the apartments and the accommodation and, and the places for people to live, there’s a lot of, it’s, it, everyone would know it, it just, there’s a lot of pressure on it.
21:27: That’s a lot, a lot of pressure just to actually be able to physically do it and have the labor to do it and have the builders to do it, let alone the cost of the construction side of it increasing, so.
21:37: I mean, I haven’t even touched on the Olympic stadiums and things like that, but surely there’s gonna be a blowout in costs there, you know, just from the construction because they’ve they’ve just increased, and, and that’s not something that we have control of at the moment.
21:49: That’s exactly right.
21:50: And just to remind our, listeners and viewers right now in Brisbane, the median unit price is sitting just under $850,000 according to totality.
22:02: Data.
22:03: So, this means that the gap between established units, or the median value for established units, and the cost to deliver brand new units remains very, escalated.
22:14: So, one of two things will happen.
22:16: Either we won’t build that new supply, because the market may not pay the price it needs to, or alternatively, that existing price will continue to creep up, so that it becomes more feasible for developers to be able to bring more stock to the market.
22:30: So, supply and demand in this segment of the market really is playing a, or having a big impact on property price pressure, and that’s why we’re seeing those prices continue to escalate.
22:41: Now, we also, I know, just slightly off cue here a little bit, we also know that there’s plans from the, the Brisbane City Council to increase density and Like that, so areas like Carindale going up from, I think it’s 20 to don’t quote me on the numbers, you’ll remember it, 20 to 30 stories from 10 to 30 stories Indooroopilly increased in height, Nundah, that’s those sort of areas, so they’re, they’re looking to propose, and this is, this is not, legislated yet.
23:10: I think it’s feedback in April.
23:12: They start the feedback on that and consultation with, with people, so.
23:16: They’re looking to increase the height and the, the density in certain areas which will allow for more units to build, but again, we have to get the approvals, we have to get the builders, it has to stack up as well.
23:27: So look, there, there’s talk there, but I think 8000 to 2000, that that’s probably the numbers that keep coming back to me.
23:34: And when I see the graphs in these reports, it’s incredible to see how high it was 2016, 2017, I think we were, just over 9000, wasn’t it?
23:44: 9000.
23:45: Yes, 9000 completions at the peak of the market, and that’s obviously, yeah, been declining since I think off 2018 we went, we almost halved, or pretty close to half or just over that, and then we’ve actually declined since.
23:58: So we’re, we’re it’s, it’s way, way below what we actually need to achieve to accommodate people as well.
24:04: Yeah, look, I think in closing, the key message here is that Brisbane does have a pipeline.
24:09: Brisbane City Council are, you know, potentially looking at rezoning land.
24:14: To allow for higher density dwellings to be built, but the reality is that there is a difference between an approval of a project and actually following through with construction and completion of a project, to be able to ensure that someone’s able to move into that property as as an owner-occupier, or as a tenant.
24:32: And this is where we’ve got this structural, issue, because a lot of those approved projects are not actually pushing through to become completed projects.
24:42: So, I hope that information has been useful to you, and we’ve certainly enjoyed unpacking this report in today’s episode.
24:49: There’s some pretty good apartments floating around.
24:51: I’ve seen some high-end apartments getting completed and getting close to completion at the moment where they’re they’re really lovely lifestyle apartments.
24:59: So we’ve seen some of those happening.
25:01: They’re getting close to completion.
25:02: They will be amazing.
25:04: I think we just need people that, want to go ahead and develop it.
25:08: They’ve got the money, and then, then also we need some builders to, to come and deliver these products.
25:12: For us in, in Brisbane.
25:13: So there’s certainly a market for that high-end product, in Brisbane.
25:17: the issue is that it’s not the high-end market that we need to build for, it’s the average, the median buyer that we need to build for, because otherwise we’re, we’re gonna be pricing people out from an affordability perspective.
25:29: So there’s so many different, areas that need to be considered in this, debate.
25:33: Completely different price points they are.
25:34: Yeah.
25:35: excellent.
25:35: Well, hopefully that’s been great information for everyone.
25:38: I will let Melinda wrap it up as I normally do.
25:41: So, from me, take care, and we’ll talk next time in the Brisbane Property podcast.
25:44: Take care, bye for now.
25:46: Thanks once again for joining us in today’s episode of the Brisbane Property Podcast.
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26:07: Until then, bye for now.