What They Said vs What Happened

On 11 September 2026, four construction and property bodies released modelling of the government's housing tax package. It puts new home starts 10,700 lower over the next four years. Treasury's number for the same budget package runs the other way: a net 30,000 more homes over ten years. The rent forecasts are five times apart, about $10 a week against about $2.

Australian home values fell in every month from April to August 2026, but the share of homes a median-income household could afford went from 43% to 12%. Prices came down, so why did fewer homes come within reach?

A rent spike and a price downgrade landed in the same week, alongside a major developer entering administration, a list of the worst postcodes for mortgage arrears, and a ban on super funds borrowing to buy residential property.

There's a version of Brisbane's supply story that fits neatly into a single stat: approvals at a decade high, a council relaxing height limits, a federal government promising 1.2 million homes. Read only the top line of each and the story is simple — more homes are coming.