‘So stark’: How the goalposts just moved for Brisbane home buyers

The first home dream is under siege in Brisbane with young couples now forced to funnel 46.4 per cent of their salary into repayments on an entry level house, new modelling shows.

Even cheap units are leaving many in mortgage stress, with repayments swallowing 34.4 per cent of their income.

The figures come from Domain’s 2025 First Home Buyer Report, released on Thursday, and reveal the Queensland capital is one of the nation’s toughest cities for first home buyer couples aged between 25 and 34 following soaring prices and stagnating salaries.

It shows the cost of an entry level house in Brisbane - the bottom quartile of the market - has reached $735,000, making it the third most expensive capital after Sydney and Canberra, following a 14.8 per cent jump in 12 months.

But the sting is even sharper when it comes to units, with the average entry-level apartment now costing $545,000 after prices skyrocketed 19.8 per cent in a year to make Brisbane the nation’s second-priciest entry-level unit market after Sydney.

Dr Nicola Powell, Domain’s chief of research and economics, says Brisbane has seen the most significant market change for first home buyers across all capitals, with property price growth outpacing even Sydney.

“Buying a first home is never an easy period of time … but for Brisbane buyers the change in affordability was so stark over the past year and even over the past five years,” said Powell.

“The repayment benchmark for mortgage stress is 30 per cent and five years ago neither houses nor apartments in Brisbane were in mortgage stress. But now they are.

“So if you are focused on saving for a deposit for an entry priced home that has been pushed further and further afield.”

The report calculates mortgage repayments based on a 20 per cent deposit for an entry-level property as a percentage of a dual income for young Australians. It showed Brisbane first home unit buyers now need to spend four years and two months saving for a deposit – the second longest after Sydney. For houses, it now takes five years and six months. This assumes each partner saves 20 per cent of post-tax income every month.

Brisbane home prices have soared.Credit: Courtney Kruk

While government incentives, such as the Queensland government’s new law that scraps stamp duty for first home buyers purchasing new builds, will help ease the pain, Powell warned it could accelerate prices and make it harder for the next wave of buyers.

She said stamp duty should ideally be abolished for all buyers, and added governments should focus on housing supply.

Beyond Brisbane’s citywide figures, the report revealed the best and worst markets for first home buyers, with the inner city west SA3 region the hardest nut to crack. There, a couple on the average income would need to spend over nine years saving for an entry level house deposit or four years for a unit.

The Cleveland - Stradbroke SA3 region, on the other end of the scale, would require a far shorter 4.6 years of saving to nab an entry level house while the SA3 region of Springfield and Kingston boast the fastest time to save for unit buyers at 3.4 years.

For now, however, first home buyers are still out in force, partially thanks to the ‘bank of mum and dad’.

“I have done more sales to young buyers in the past seven months than I have done in a long time,” Angela Steven of Ray White Stones Corner said.

“But now I see so many parents attending open homes to help them. Out of the past seven sales I did only two were doing it by themselves.“

Jayden Vecchio, mortgage broker at Brisbane’s Hunter Galloway, said some young buyers were still underestimating the extent of the financial burden of homeownership.

“Five years ago you could buy a home under $600,000, but even in Ipswich that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

“But the cost associated with units (is another pitfall). I had one who first home buyer sign a contract recently but then they found out the body corporate fee was $10,000 a year which is enormous.”

While he said the recent interest rate drop was adding between $10,000 and $20,000 to their borrowing capacity, Vecchio said HECS was an underestimated burden that was still reducing borrowing capacity until the federal government’s plans to change this come into effect.

Will Torres, director at Torres Property said fear of missing out was still driving hordes of first home buyers into particularly the unit and townhouse market, particularly in southeast Brisbane.

He said competition was a major challenge for young property hopefuls, but advised getting pre approval and a short finance clause to increase that leg up.

“If you can get a pre-market opportunity don’t hesitate and make a solid offer,” he added.