Queensland real estate
Up to $325,000 in equity has vanished from some of Queensland’s most exclusive suburbs in just 12 weeks as a brutal correction fractures the top end of the state’s property market.
Quarterly home price data from PropTrack showed parts of the prestige sector hit a brick wall, driven by a toxic cocktail of rate hikes and global anxiety.
Brisbane’s affluent New Farm emerged as the state’s biggest casualty in the three months to March 2026, as median house values plummeted 9 per cent.
SOLD: $6.15m, 38 Moreton St, New Farm
For homeowners, that equates to a staggering $325,760 equity wipe-out since January, dragging the median house price down to $3.12m.
Four of Queensland’s 10 most expensive suburbs went backwards over the quarter, while the rest largely flatlined with the exception of Hamilton, where houses were up 4 per cent to $2.66m.
The wealth evaporation spread down the M1 to the Gold Coast, where Surfers Paradise houses shed 6 per cent, or about $190,000, to $3.19m.
Brisbane’s tightly held Gumdale recorded a 6 per cent quarterly drop (down $131,838 to $2.06m), while inner-city Auchenflower shed 5 per cent to $2m. Even units took a hit, in Grange falling 5 per cent to $1.04m.
Drew Davies said sellers were “sitting tight”, fuelling a shortage of prestige homes coming to market
But a deeper dive into the annual figures suggested a sharp economic shock rather than a long-term crash.
Despite the quarterly bloodbath, New Farm houses remained 6 per cent up year-on-year, while Auchenflower and Gumdale climbed 14 and 13 per cent from 2025.
Place Purpose Group director Drew Davies said an ongoing lack of prestige stock had caused a standoff between buyers and sellers.
“Global events are causing uncertainty, which is resulting in a lot less sellers coming to market. They are preferring to sit tight for the short term,” Mr Davies said.
“But we are still getting a strong amount of demand from buyers, and if anything, an increase in interstate buyers over the past quarter.”
SOLD: $1.363m, 68 Poinsettia Ave, Runaway Bay
Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) CEO Antonia Mercorella said the data reflected “an increasingly divided two-speed market”.
“Competition for housing is intensified around the lower quartiles of the market where affordability is greatest, and this demand tapers off as you move up the price spectrum,” Ms Mercorella said.
While the top end freezes, the middle and lower tiers of Queensland’s property ladder are boiling over.
Mr Davies noted buyers originally hunting in premium postcodes were pivoting to the middle ring.
“I think the mid-tier market in your middle-ring suburbs is going to continue to strengthen, as areas like Wavell Heights offer a really good alternative for those buyers who were previously looking at the inner-city blue-chip areas,” he said.
REIQ CEO Antonia Mercorella said first-home buyers were buoyed by the government’s expanded deposit scheme
Ms Mercorella said first-home buyers were buoyed by the Federal Government’s 5 per cent deposit scheme, which came into effect late last year and lowered the savings barrier for properties under $1m in metro centres including Brisbane, Gold Coast, and Sunshine Coast.
Priced out of the blue-chip postcodes, buyers were flooding the outer rings and regional centres, supercharging affordable units and median-priced family homes.
Units in Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast were the state’s absolute top performer. Prices skyrocketed 16 per cent in a single quarter, up $118,082 to $872,438.
Meanwhile, Logan and Ipswich cemented their status as battlegrounds for first-home buyers and mum-and-dad investors.
SOLD: $830,000, 4/60 Kent St, Beenleigh
Units in Beenleigh surged 14 per cent over the quarter to $641,133, while Booval (+12%), Waterford (+11%), and Bundamba (+11%) all recorded big short-term spikes.
Annually, unit prices in Logan’s Waterford West and Hillcrest were up more than 42 per cent.
The state’s middle-market of family homes in the $800,000 to $1.2m bracket also recorded strong growth as buyers compromised on location to secure a backyard.
In Logan, median-priced houses in Flagstone topped the million-dollar mark after surging 7 per cent for the quarter to $1.02m, while nearby Gleneagle jumped 8 per cent to $963,166.
Up north in Moreton Bay, houses in Kallangur climbed 7 per cent for the quarter (up $63,000) to sit just shy of the million-dollar club at $985,179.
SOLD: $345,000, 7 School St, Charters Towers City
Brisbane’s western fringes also saw strong middle-market action, with houses in Ipswich’s Basin Pocket climbing 9 per cent to $776,761.
Brisbane buyer’s agent Lauren Jones said surging demand for townhouses and smaller homes had turned the city into a “pressure cooker,” prompting Brisbane City Council to unveil high-density proposals targeting the ‘missing middle’.
With the delivery of new homes in Low-Medium Density (LMR) zones down from a historical average of 1,100 homes annually to just 445, council was exploring a move away from the traditional quarter-acre block in favour of three-storey minimums and smaller 300sqm block splits near transport hubs.
Buyers agent Lauren Jones said demand for townhouses and smaller homes was strong
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“Brisbane needs to implement these changes if we plan to better manage traffic congestion and critically low vacancy rates, without expanding our geographical footprint with more urban sprawl,” Ms Jones said.
Ms Mercorella said labour shortages and low productivity meant supply issues would continue to put a floor under the more affordable brackets, with dwelling approvals running about 13 per cent below target.
Ray White Group chief economist Nerida Conisbee warned this structural housing shortage was compounded by re-emerging global supply chain pressures.
SOLD: $4.55m, 63 Gibraltar Dr, Surfers Paradise
“The escalation of conflict in the Middle East is contributing to higher fuel costs and renewed disruption to shipping routes, which will flow through to increased material and construction costs in the months ahead,” Ms Conisbee said.
She warned that while the prestige end of the market was cooling, the underlying affordability crisis was only going to worsen.
“What we are seeing is not an easing of the housing shortage, but a shift in how it is playing out,” she said.
“Slower price growth does little to offset the fact that new housing is becoming more expensive to deliver, limiting supply and placing upward pressure on prices over time.”
Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee
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