Brisbane Land Shortage: SEQ Prices Up 25% as Supply Dries Up

June 14, 2026

min read

A woman gestures to indicate a small size while standing in front of a narrow block of land in Brisbane, illustrating the city's acute shortage of inner-city vacant lots. Image: News.com.au

Samantha Healy

Brisbane Land Shortage: SEQ Prices Up 25% as Supply Dries Up

June 14, 2026

min read

Brisbane's Land Supply Is Running Out, and the Numbers Prove It

Journalist Samantha Healy, writing for News.com.au, reports on the accelerating land shortage gripping Brisbane's inner suburbs, illustrated by a 185sqm driveway in Petrie Terrace hitting the market as one of just four remaining vacant blocks in the suburb.

South East Queensland Land Prices Surge as Supply Tightens

The listing coincides with findings from the latest Oliver Hume Land Index and Residential Market Outlook, which recorded a 10.6 per cent rise in South East Queensland land prices in the March quarter 2026, bringing the median lot price to $543,400. Over the year, the median lifted 24.9 per cent across the region, while the volume of land sales fell nearly 30 per cent. Brisbane recorded the highest median for vacant land during the quarter at $1,190,322, a 62.2 per cent increase over 12 months, with price per square metre across SEQ rising 11.8 per cent to $1,308, outpacing both Adelaide ($953) and Melbourne ($1,057).

Separate analysis by Place Advisory found just 134 splitter block sales within 5km of the Brisbane CBD over the past 18 months, concentrated in a handful of suburbs including West End, Bulimba, and Hawthorne, a sharp contrast to the hundreds of potential sites identified across the city as recently as 2020.

What the Data Means for Brisbane's Land Market

Oliver Hume chief economist Matt Bell said the SEQ result reflected a fundamental mismatch between demand and supply. "Sales volumes fell in every major corridor to contribute to overall SEQ sales being down nearly 30 per cent," he said. "At the same time, prices rose in every corridor, with overall median pricing rising by 11 per cent in the March quarter alone, securing a 25 per cent rise annually."

Bell noted that while some of the more pronounced price movements in the Brisbane and Gold Coast corridors reflected smaller volumes and geographic shifts in sales activity, the high-selling corridors of Ipswich, Moreton Bay, and Logan all recorded quarterly price growth between five and ten per cent, placing each at 20 per cent or above on an annual basis.