Why Invest in the Brisbane Property Market in 2025 and Beyond.

Brisbane Property Investment 2025: Scarcity Creates Opportunity

Brisbane is one of Australia’s most attractive property investment markets, driven by major infrastructure projects including Cross River Rail, Brisbane Metro, and Queen’s Wharf. These developments create jobs, attract migration, and underpin long-term property value growth. Vacancy rates remain at an ultra-low 1%, pushing rental yields higher, with select suburbs achieving double-digit growth. Lower to mid-price properties are highly sought after, offering strong cash flow and long-term capital growth, making them ideal for first-time and experienced investors alike. Smart strategies such as adding a granny flat or pursuing dual occupancy can increase rental income, create dual-income potential, and manufacture equity on a single title. With sustained population growth across Brisbane, Ipswich, and Moreton Bay, combined with Queensland’s strong economy and easing lending conditions, prepared investors can secure high-demand metro properties tenants actively compete for. By focusing on quality locations, value-add opportunities, and market trends, investors can maximise returns and capitalise on Brisbane’s scarcity-driven property market in 2025 and beyond.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Brisbane Thesis
• 0:40 Olympic Infrastructure & Jobs Flywheel
• 2:04 Vacancy Squeeze And Rent Growth
• 5:18 Affordability And Demand Signals
• 6:36 Value-Add: Granny Flats & Dual Occ
• 8:41 Population Growth And Scarcity
• 10:19 Listings, DOM, And Buyer Competition
• 12:21 Economy, Rate Cuts, And Outlook
• 13:31 Long-Term Metro Strategy & Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Why the Brisbane property market in 2025 and beyond? In this episode today, we are talking about the Brisbane property market and why we believe it's still going to perform strongly. My name is Casey Taylor and I'm the host of the Tailored Property Wealth podcast. We're going to get straight into it today and we're talking about a lot of different metrics as to why we think Brisbane is still going to perform. We're talking about infrastructure, vacancy rates, rental income, affordability, value ads in the Brisbane location, listing levels, population growth, median days on market, and many more. So let's get into it today. First off the rank with infrastructure. Now, obviously, Brisbane is hosting the 2032 Olympics. And what we typically see with Olympics is there is a large amount of investment going on into the infrastructure of that particular city. Now, with infrastructure, is more job creation. There's more demand as people move to that location to be able to build the amenities, build the infrastructure. And then off the back of that, once that is completed, it's created more long-term jobs to support that infrastructure, whatever it may be. So it is a long, a long-term play, but it's also just improving the city, improving a particular area within a city as well. And that's where some of that gentrification happens, also. So infrastructure is a big one going on. Some of them are the Cross River Rail, Brisbane Metro, there's the Queen's Wharf development, and then lots of transport, sports-related infrastructure. So there's a massive amount going into Brisbane at the moment. If you go to Brisbane, you can see lots of it taking place. And it is a beautiful city. I'm looking forward to being able to go to the Olympics and see that. When it does take place, only seven years away now. Vacancy rates. We fundamentally have a rental crisis going on in the country still. It's not going to change anytime soon, unfortunately, because we're so backwards in the way we're thinking with how we demonize landlords. Brisbane right now is sitting at 1% as of August 2025 for their vacancy rate. Now, this has remained pretty low since 2022, where it dropped from that 1.5 mark. Now, 1.5 is still extremely low, and it doesn't look like that's going to improve anytime soon. Rental income growth. And this is off the back of those vacancy rates. And we've also got to remember with vacancy rates, it's a forward indicator for growth because there's a lot of renters out there that are choosing to rent. So once rents start to increase and then it's more in line with property prices, you can hold a mortgage for the same price, then people start to move into purchasing. That creates more sales activity, more demand, and pushes prices higher. Now, rental income growth, 6.2% in the last 12 months for Brisbane. Now that is down from the last couple of years quite significantly because we were seeing some crazy, some crazy growth up around the 20% mark. So it's actually falling more in line with where it needs to be. But as an investor, you can go out and purchase and know in 12 months' time your rental income is going to increase because we know vacancy rates are quite tightly held. So our rental income is increasing, our rental yield on the original purchase price is increasing. And this is what some people do not understand. I purchased property four or five years ago, far lower purchase price. And the rents at that time were so, so much lower, but they've increased over time. So some of my properties are now positive cash flow because rates have reduced, that rental income growth has taken place, and now on that original purchase price, it's quite high. Especially when you can get in at a higher gross yield to start with when prices are lower. But as capital growth outpaces rental income growth, you'll see your gross yield drop. So this is what people don't understand. They wait for years for rates to reduce, but the reality is that your gross yield is lower than what you could have purchased two years ago, and you're now holding debt that you've had to borrow more of on that same asset over a 30-year period. It's really important to understand that. Couple of areas or suburbs that we target in Brisbane. So first suburb, 11.2% growth in rental income, suburb 2, 7.5%, and third suburb 8.1%. So rental income growth is higher than that of Brisbane holistically, as well, for those particular suburbs that we target and they've performed capital growth-wise as well in the last 12 months. So there is quite strong rental income in those right areas as well. Affordability. And this is where some of those positives come into other aspects. The rental income growth, because there is the affordability there, it has the opportunity to push higher. But in those affordable locations, there's more people transacting there because they can afford to. And that's where that demand is seen. And we're going to go through some of that demand in a little bit because it is still pumping. Value add potential in Brisbane. This one is massive in a lot of the LGAs within Brisbane. And they're really starting to shift their mindset and open up the door to more, to be able to do more with the piece of land that you've got already. So there's some positive shifts, and they recognize that they need more supply. They recognize that we fundamentally have a crisis going on because of those vacancy rates, and they're being open to doing more things. So it's it is quite positive in that aspect. We focus on both Granny flat plays and dual occupancy plays. A Granny flat play is adding a second dwelling to that property that is still going to be on the same title. However, that can range from a one-bed, one bath up to a three-bed, two bath in the right LGA, which is a 120 meter square Granny flat. It's essentially a small house on a separate dwelling at the back of that property, separated by a different fence line. However, it is on the one title, still rented separately with two tenancies. The second is a dual oc play where we go out, we secure a site where you can build a second dwelling on it. However, you can strata title that dwelling, create two titles, you're manufacturing a massive amount of equity in from that deal, and you're getting the cash flow as well, diversifying into two income streams and creating wealth that way. It's a very powerful play that we're doing at the moment. Especially when you're focusing on that quality property where you don't want to lower the quality on the location. So there are two strategies we are implementing right now. Population growth. Ipswich to grow from 373,651 in 2021 to 702,449 in 2046. Brisbane LGA set to grow from 1.26 mil in 2021 to a range of 1.46 mil to 1.76 mil in 2046. Morton Bay to grow from 269,000 in 21 to 490,000 in 2046. So there's a lot of population growth expected in Brisbane. Right now, demand is so high with our supply levels being low that more population coming to this marketplace is going to continue to push pressure from a demand aspect, and that's what creates scarcity, and that's what creates growth. If you understand that, you will be investing heavily in here with that long-term mindset. 2046 is 20 years away, let's call it. Essentially, some of those locations are going to almost double in that period of time in terms of population. More people competing over the same amount of land. That's going to drive growth. Listing levels. I've taken a look at just a couple of suburbs that we purchase in and what the listing levels in those suburbs are done in 12 months. Across the board, listing levels are down. They're below the five-year average, they're below what they were 12 months ago. But some of the suburbs we target, it's crazy how much lower. 58% on suburb number one, listing levels are below what they were 12 months ago. 55% for suburb two, and 22% for suburb three. So there's less stock out there right now available. And that's why it takes a little bit longer when you're not dropping your standards to purchase that property. Hopefully, we see this kind of come through a little bit more, the listing levels, especially we've just come through winter, so listings do pick up a little bit. Now, median days on market, and this one is very important to understand. Of the three suburbs that we've been speaking of, two of those have a median days on market of 15 days, and one has 16 days, median days on market. Properties are selling extremely quickly. Essentially, first open home, they are selling. There's high demand out there right now. There's still, in some instances, 20, 30 groups getting through some of these properties. So the demand is still there. It's going to continue to push that demand. These median days on market have been like this for the last 12 months. They haven't moved much, they've stayed low. It's been a couple of years that they have remained at this level, and that just shows the demand in these areas if you're focusing on the right locations in the more affordable areas as well. Queensland is rated number three in the state of the state report from CBA. So it is quite strong in terms of where it's sitting. We know that local economy is important for price growth. Melbourne is a prime example. It's a long-term consistent performer, but they handled COVID terribly. It killed a lot of businesses and the economy. And off the back of that, the property market was affected quite substantially. It's starting to recover now. However, the last five years, if you capture the growth that it had, it has not done much. We're also in a rate reduction cycle for interest rates. This is a positive holistically, but it still positively influences the Brisbane property market. There's a couple more rate cuts coming when we don't know the big four are predicting another couple in the next six months. Let's say. This is going to continue to allow people who couldn't have purchased a property previously now to be able to afford, or there's people sitting there waiting for cash to improve, for their holding costs to improve, to take action. And we're starting to see that already now with those rate reductions. So it's going to create more pressure in this already high demand, low supply environment. That's it today. Why we like the Brisbane property market? If you're looking for the long-term play, Brisbane is a really solid location. It's not overcooked. If you're looking in those right areas, there's very strong long-term fundamentals there. This is why we like Metro locations, because we are purchasing with the long-term fundamentals. We're not focusing on areas that are going to do good growth for one, two, three years, where some of these locations are being influenced heavily by investors, some of the big dogs in the industry putting the pressure into that individual location. We're property investors, we're not property traders. We have a long term mindset when investing and getting into those metros really lowers your risk and has that long term demand. Thanks for listening today. I hope you enjoyed, and we'll see you on the next one.