QUEENSLAND
Housing Affordability
2026
The ladder looks steeper
For homebuyers, getting onto the property ladder looks very different to previous generations.
Prices are higher. Interest rates have changed the equation. Deposits are harder to save. And for many buyers, the gap between what they want and what they can comfortably afford feels increasingly difficult to bridge.
So buyers are adapting.
They’re looking for ways to reduce costs, borrowing less where they can and considering smaller homes – all with one goal in mind: getting the monthly mortgage payment to a number they can realistically live with.
A recent Cotality report explores the calculations buyers are making to get into a home they can actually afford. The research surveyed homebuyers across five markets – the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand – comparing recent buyers, who purchased within the past five years, with future buyers, who intend to purchase within the next two years.
The findings offer an interesting look at how buyers are adapting their expectations, budgets and buying strategies as affordability reshapes the path to homeownership.
BUYING SMARTER
Across all five markets, buyers are adapting. They’re making compromises, recalibrating expectations and, in many cases, finding a way through a difficult affordability landscape.
Speed still matters. But increasingly, certainty matters more – the confidence that all the effort, paperwork and financial stretching will ultimately result in one thing: the keys to a home.
Buyers are showing lenders, brokers, insurers and property platforms where their boundaries sit. Those boundaries are valuable signals, revealing where people are in the mortgage journey, what they can afford and what needs to change to get a deal across the line.
This Cotality Report explores how those calculations are being made, where affordability starts to break down, and what happens when the variables are aligned correctly.
Because while some are still waiting for rates to fall, others are already working out what they can change to make homeownership possible now.
HOUSE + LAND
Easing onto the property ladder
For many first-home buyers, getting into the property market can feel like trying to hit a moving target. Land prices, construction costs, deposits and loan repayments all need to stack up – and the wrong combination can quickly put homeownership out of reach.
That’s where a well-priced house and land package can make a real difference.
By bringing the land and the new home together in one package, buyers can see the overall cost upfront and focus on a practical floorplan, the right amount of space and a price point that works within their budget.
Building new can also mean buyers aren’t competing for an established home in the same way. They’re starting with a new property, designed for modern living, with the opportunity to choose a package that balances location, land, home and affordability.
And that’s the important bit: the right package at the right price.
For first-home buyers, getting onto the property ladder isn’t necessarily about buying a home that ticks everything on your wishlist. It’s about finding a realistic entry point – a home they can live in, a mortgage they can manage and a property that gives them somewhere to start.
Because sometimes the first step onto the ladder doesn’t need to be perfect.
It just needs to be possible.
FRD Homes specialises in house and land packages that are within the reach of more hard working Aussies.
Take a look at how we build and how FRD is helping secure the future more Australian families….