Why Hub is backing Brisbane over Melbourne and what it means for our clients.

Words by David Walker (Head of Transaction & Advisory)

For over a decade, Hub has focused its acquisitions services for our clients predominantly on the Melbourne market, and for good reason, as it was the market that rewarded that strategy. However, that’s no longer the case, with the last five years to June 2026 indicating that Brisbane house prices have risen 119% against Melbourne’s 15%, and Brisbane units being up 129% against Melbourne’s 8%.

Brisbane now trades ahead of Melbourne on both metrics, clearly leading the way to why deals are now so much harder to get away in Melbourne compared to other markets. The reasons go well beyond price growth, construction costs have stepped up through COVID and haven’t come back down, while revenue has been flat to falling, squeezing the margin that makes a project feasible. Layer on increases in taxes, development contribution costs, increased and new levies and bonds payable by Developers in Victoria, plus a Vacant Residential Land Tax that from January 2026 expands to undeveloped residential sites, and it’s a market actively penalising the kind of land banking many developers rely on.

A November state election adds further policy uncertainty on top of recent planning changes. Brisbane and South East Queensland, by contrast, are dealing with a genuine supply problem rather than a policy one, which is a far better problem for developers and their financiers to be solving.

The forecasts back this up rather than complicate it. KPMG’s January 2026 house price forecasts have Brisbane houses growing 10.9% in 2026 against Melbourne’s 6.8%, and Brisbane units at 7.8% against Melbourne’s 7.3%, with the Gold Coast still forecast to grow 4–7% off the back of 9–12% growth in 2025. This isn’t a pandemic-era anomaly working itself out anymore, it’s a structural shortfall, with Charter Keck Cramer forecasting Brisbane annual apartment demand of 5,500–6,600 dwellings against forecast supply of only around 4,100, leaving an annual shortfall of 1,400–2,500 apartments over the next three years.

That gap is exactly why feasibilities are still clearing the bar in Brisbane when Melbourne’s increasingly can’t. Referencing a recent Charter Keck Cramer State of the Market presentation, attended by the Hub team in Brisbane, focusing on the changing Brisbane vs other capital city markets, comparing a like-for-like Brisbane apartment project from 2020 against one from 2025, total development costs rose 108% but revenues also rose 109% alongside it, holding the development margin close to the a circa 20% target throughout (21.9% down to 19.3%). Costs and revenue have moved together.

However, In Melbourne, that relationship has broken down, with costs rising through the same period and remaining high, but revenue growth not keeping pace, adding on rising holding costs from new tax settings and increased contribution, bond, and levy costs, only adds further pressure. It’s telling that builders’ workbooks in Brisbane are full three to four years out, indicating a market backing itself with its own capacity, not just its prices.

It’s against this backdrop that Hub is now focusing heavily on Queensland transactions directly lead by our Brisbane office helping create the required relationships with agents, vendors and consultants across the region to assist our clients with feasible transactions in the current market.

Brisbane’s path to the 2032 Olympics adds a further catalyst on top of the fundamentals, with a $127.5 billion state infrastructure pipeline, a wave of foreign capital interest that host cities typically attract, and what Charter Keck Cramer describes as a “halo effect” re-rating Brisbane as a global city, not unlike what Sydney experienced after 2000.

For our clients and capital partners, this means Hub’s Transactions & Advisory team is now weighting its focus toward Queensland acquisitions and project opportunities, because that is where the numbers, and the timing, are indicating is working hardest in their favour.

If you have an existing project or are looking to acquire a development site in Queensland or Melbourne and want the view of a team that’s tracking both closely, get in touch with Hub’s Transactions & Advisory team today.

david@hubpg.com.au