‘Scary’ figures: We're only building half of the housing we need

‘Scary’ figures show we’ve been building only half the apartments needed to meet targets, with costs and productivity to blame.

The extent of Brisbane’s housing crisis has been revealed, with shock data showing the city has delivered less than half of the apartments required to meet government targets every year since 2020.

With housing a key issue in the lead-up to the state election, the Property Council of Australia has commissioned new research revealing Brisbane is still expected to be up to 1000 units a year short of requirements under the South East Queensland Regional Plan until 2027.

The research by Urbis reveals a third of apartment projects are at risk of being delayed or shelved altogether thanks to a combination of labour shortages, construction costs, union interference, and Queensland’s controversial Best Practice Industry Conditions policy (BPIC).

New research commissioned by the Property Council reveals Brisbane’s apartment supply pipelne is well short of housing targets. Picture: David Clark.

Project timeframes have blown out by 2.5 years since 2019, and industry experts say the cost of a new apartment is now too expensive for the average buyer anyway.

“Two bedrooms at $1.3 million? That’s how scary this is,” Colliers Brisbane residential director Jon Rivera said.

“We’ve got huge demand, but apartments now don’t serve anyone unless you’re a wealthy person.”

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Urbis director Paul Riga said Brisbane was delivering “effectively under half” of its medium to high-rise targets of 4,500 apartments per annum under the SEQ Regional Plan.

Colliers Brisbane residential director Jon Rivera says $1.3m for a two-bedroom apartment is ‘scary’. Picture: Darren England.

“We’ve been delivering, since 2020, between 1500 and 2000 apartments per annum in inner Brisbane,” Mr Riga said.

“Worryingly our analysis is potentially optimistic given the widely publicised headwinds being experienced in the multi-residential sector with a third of Brisbane’s supply at a moderate to high risk of not being developed by 2027.

“We are seeing nationally that apartment projects are taking longer than ever with the time taken to develop an apartment building (approval to completion) increasing from 45 months in 2019 to 75 months in 2024.

Paul Riga, Urbis director, says a lack of productivity and the financial viability of projects was slowing down the delivery of apartments in Brisbane.

“What we’re seeing and hearing from developers is that completion timeframes may also push out further. Productivity and the financial viability of projects is adding to South East Queensland’s (construction project) time delays.”

Mr Rivera said the cost of buying a site, planning, building, and then trying to sell apartments had turned many developers off.

“You can only make apartments work if someone can afford over $1 million now, so why take the risk?” he said.

“We’ve got a downsizing market that wants low maintenance living, and a first homebuyer market that’s pretty much priced out.

“We’ve got an entrenched, unionised, political and social ecological environment — and limited builders.”

Brisbane’s apartment supply pipeline has been struggling to meet demand since 2019, new research reveals.

Property Council of Australia Queensland executive director Jess Caire said the state government needed to rethink how it leveraged the institutional capital required to make large scale apartment projects feasible.

“As we can see from this data something significant needs to change if we are going to get close to our housing targets,” Ms Caire said.

“Feedback from investors is that a lot of high-density residential development in Brisbane simply isn’t feasible due to a combination of declining productivity, constrained infrastructure delivery and the impost of government taxes.

“Taxes targeted towards international capital are particularly destructive in the current environment.”

Jess Caire, executive director Queensland, Property Council of Australia, says the state government needs to rethink how it leverages the institutional capital required to make large scale apartment projects feasible.

Originally published as ‘Scary’ figures: We're only building half of the housing we need