While Sydney and Melbourne often steal the headlines, Brisbane has been outperforming expectation delivering steady, sustainable growth, and it’s not slowing down.
With record migration, billions of dollars in infrastructure spending, and the 2032 Olympic Games on the horizon, the River City is entering what could be its golden decade.
That doesn’t mean Brisbane’s growth will continue at the same pace it has. After five extraordinary years, some moderation is inevitable – and the latest ANZ Research forecast reflects that.
ANZ expects Brisbane to grow 9.7% in 2026, before slowing to 1.4% in 2027 as affordability constraints tighten and higher interest rates work their way through the market.
That’s a normal phase of the cycle, and it doesn’t change Brisbane’s underlying investment case one bit.
What it does mean is that investors need to be even more strategic about what they buy and where, because in a slower-growth environment, the quality of the individual asset matters even more than it did when the whole city was rising.
If you’re looking for clarity in the chaos — and a proven way to profit from Brisbane’s next growth wave — you’re in the right place.
Here’s the forecast for Brisbane property prices in 2026
The most current forecast data is from ANZ Research’s April 2026 update, and for Brisbane it tells a story of two very different years.
Brisbane’s 2026 forecast of 9.7% is still among the strongest of any capital city – a reflection of the tight supply conditions and ongoing demand that have driven the market for several years.
But 2027 tells a different story. ANZ expects growth to slow sharply to 1.4% as affordability reaches its limits after five years of consecutive above-average gains.
To put that in context, Brisbane has grown 12.1%, 13.3%, and then 9.7% in three consecutive years.
By any measure, that is an exceptional run, meaning some consolidation in 2027 is not just unsurprising – it’s healthy.
It doesn’t mean Brisbane stops being one of Australia’s most compelling long-term investment markets. It means investors should be thinking about the decade ahead, not just the next twelve months, and when you look at what that decade holds, the picture is genuinely exciting.
Domain’s FY27 Housing Market Forecast, released in June, takes a similar view of the year ahead to June 2027, putting Brisbane house prices up 3% to 7% and units up a more modest 2% to 5%.
What’s notable here, compared with Sydney and Melbourne, is that ANZ and Domain are telling a broadly similar story for Brisbane rather than pulling in opposite directions. Both see growth continuing, just moderating from the extraordinary pace of the past few years to a more sustainable pace.
That’s a genuinely different position to the one facing our two largest cities right now, and it’s worth investors understanding that Brisbane’s “moderation” and Sydney or Melbourne’s “correction” are not the same thing.
The Olympics decade, why Brisbane’s best years are still to come.
Since the announcement of the Olympics hosting in 2021, Brisbane’s house price index has already risen 37% above the national average.
That’s a bigger spread than Sydney managed in the same timeframe, and the infrastructure build hasn’t even properly started yet.
CBRE research also examined what happened to residential prices in the four years following the Games in every host city since 1996.
The average price growth in the four years post-Olympics was 42.5%, compared to 23.3% in the four years leading up to the event.
Olympic host cities, on average, grew faster after the Games than before them.
This is the most underappreciated data point in the entire Brisbane investment conversation, and it directly addresses the “post-Olympics bust” fear that holds some investors back.
Here’s what’s actually being built:
A lot of investors get caught up in the headline number – $7.1 billion for venues – without understanding what that money is actually doing to the city’s fabric.
There is the new 63,000-seat stadium at Victoria Park (earthworks mid-2026), the Athletes Village at Bowen Hills converting to residential post-Games, the National Aquatics Centre at Spring Hill, and Cross River Rail threading it all together.
This is much more than just temporary infrastructure – most of it has been deliberately designed for legacy use.
The supply squeeze:
Queensland construction costs are up 44% over five years.
As the Olympics build ramps up from late 2026 through to mid-2031, construction capacity that might otherwise go into residential development will get absorbed into the Olympics pipeline.
CBRE forecasts just 3,100 new inner-city dwellings will be built each year from 2026 to 2031, which is well below the demand implied by Brisbane’s population growth. this has led to vacancy rate forecasts remaining at or below 1.0% until at least 2031.
But be careful … while the Olympics will provide a tailwind, it’s not an investment thesis in itself. Good property investment is still about buying the right asset in the right location with genuine owner-occupier appeal. The Games will just accelerate what was already happening.
Source: Brisbane Property Market Forecast [2026 & Beyond] – What the Olympics Decade Means for Investors, Michael Yardney, Property Update by Metropole
Date of article: 28 September 2026