Brisbane units are having a moment.
Prices have climbed, buyers are paying attention, and Massey Archibald says Brisbane's unit market is approaching territory that would have seemed almost unbelievable less than a decade ago.
But here's the question he thinks property investors should be asking:
Are you buying Brisbane because the opportunity is still there — or because everybody can finally see the winner?
On the Teach Me About Property Podcast, Massey and Felise unpacked why TMAP is now looking closely at Melbourne units instead.
The lesson isn't that Melbourne is guaranteed to become “the next Brisbane.”
It's that the best property opportunities can appear before everyone agrees they're good opportunities.
Massey's argument comes down to the property cycle.
Brisbane units were deeply unpopular when oversupply was high and prices were weak.
Developers eventually stopped building.
Existing supply was gradually absorbed.
Population and rental demand increased.
Prices followed.
Now that Brisbane units have experienced substantial growth, Massey questions whether investors buying today are paying for past performance rather than future value.
Meanwhile, TMAP is finding some Melbourne units close to the CBD where prices have barely moved for years while rents have continued rising.
His question is simple:
Where is the value now?
To understand Massey's argument, you have to go backwards.
Not to last year.
Back to around 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Brisbane's apartment market looked very different.
Massey remembers it firsthand from deals TMAP was examining at the time:
“You couldn't give away a Brisbane unit.”
The problem wasn't Brisbane itself.
It was supply.
According to Massey's description, too many apartments had been built too quickly.
There weren't enough buyers.
More importantly for investors, there weren't always enough tenants.
Developers were offering discounts.
Valuations were causing problems.
Settlements could become difficult.
And rental vacancies could destroy the economics of what otherwise looked like a cheap deal.
Massey explains:
“The biggest, biggest, biggest problem — no tenancies.”
That's a critical lesson.
Cheap doesn't automatically mean good value.
A $380,000 investment property isn't attractive if you can't rent it and have to carry the mortgage yourself.
Eventually, developers react.
If newly completed apartments aren't selling for enough money, the next development becomes difficult to justify.
Why build another 100 apartments if the completed apartments next door are struggling to sell?
That's essentially what Massey says happened.
Developers pulled back.
Projects were parked.
New supply slowed.
Then something interesting began happening.
The market started absorbing the apartments that had already been built.
Massey describes the cycle simply:
“Supply stops and eventually the market absorbs the supply.”
That didn't happen overnight.
It took years.
But while development activity slowed, Brisbane itself kept changing.
Then COVID changed things again.
Demand changed.
Massey points to the large movement of people into Queensland, particularly from Sydney and Melbourne during and after the pandemic period.
More people meant more housing demand.
Meanwhile, developers had already responded to the previous oversupply by reducing new construction.
Put those two forces together:
Demand rises.
Old supply gets absorbed.
New supply isn't arriving as quickly.
The market tightens.
Rents rise.
Prices rise.
Suddenly, the apartments people didn't want years earlier become highly desirable.
That's the cycle Massey wants investors to understand.
He tells Felise that if somebody had suggested back around 2017 that Brisbane unit prices could one day challenge Sydney's, people would have thought the idea was ridiculous.
Today, according to the projections they discuss on the podcast, that possibility no longer sounds ridiculous.
Because price matters.
This is probably the most important part of the entire conversation.
Massey talks about Brisbane units that could once be bought around the high-$300,000 range.
Today, he discusses projections around the mid-$800,000 range for the market he's analysing.
His conclusion:
“Value has left the building, bro.”
That doesn't mean Brisbane units suddenly become bad properties.
It doesn't mean Brisbane prices have to fall.
And it certainly doesn't mean every Brisbane apartment is overpriced.
It means the investment equation has changed.
If you could buy an asset for $385,000 several years ago and a comparable market position now costs substantially more, you aren't buying the same opportunity.
You're buying after a significant amount of growth has already occurred.
Because success feels safe.
Massey compares it with supporting a winning sports team.
When a team starts winning, suddenly everyone wants to jump on.
Property can work the same way.
When a market is flat, people ask:
Why would I buy there?
When it falls:
Something must be wrong.
When it hasn't moved in seven years:
It's obviously a terrible investment.
Then prices double.
Suddenly:
How do I get in?
Massey puts it perfectly:
“Nobody wants to buy them when they're 385,000 and everybody wants to buy them when they're 861,000.”
That's not really a Brisbane lesson.
It's a lesson about investor psychology.
People often feel safest buying after the evidence of past success becomes obvious.
Unfortunately, that's also when much of the easy value may already have disappeared.
There are similarities Massey finds interesting.
But there are also important differences.
That's why we shouldn't simply declare:
“Melbourne is the next Brisbane.”
Different cities have different economies, populations, planning systems, taxes, housing stock, migration patterns and supply pipelines.
What Massey is doing is comparing market characteristics, not promising identical outcomes.
The biggest characteristic catching TMAP's attention?
Some Melbourne unit prices haven't moved much.
Massey says:
“Some of them haven't moved in the last eight years.”
In some deals TMAP is examining, he says owners are selling for less than they paid seven, eight or nine years earlier.
Many investors hear that and think:
Stay away.
Massey hears it and asks a different question:
Why?
Only if the fundamentals make sense.
A flat historical price chart isn't enough.
But neither is a rising one.
Massey points to several characteristics TMAP is currently looking at in Melbourne.
Properties relatively close to the CBD.
Established locations.
Access to amenities.
A significant gap between house and unit prices.
Unit values that haven't experienced the same growth as houses.
And perhaps most importantly:
Rents have been moving even when unit prices haven't.
That changes the equation.
If the purchase price stays relatively flat while rental income rises, the rental yield can improve.
That's very different from chasing an asset where prices have doubled but rents haven't kept pace.
Rental yield measures the rental income of a property relative to its value.
A simple gross rental yield calculation is:
Annual rent ÷ property price × 100
For example:
| Property | Purchase price | Weekly rent | Approx. gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property A | $400,000 | $500 | 6.5% |
| Property B | $800,000 | $600 | 3.9% |
These are illustrative numbers only, but they demonstrate the principle.
Property B produces more rent in dollar terms.
But you're paying twice as much to own it.
Yield isn't the only thing that matters. Investors also need to consider expenses, strata, maintenance, vacancies, finance, taxes, growth prospects and the quality of the asset.
But it helps answer an important question:
How much income am I receiving for every dollar I'm paying for the property?
That's one reason rising prices can eventually make a previously attractive investment less compelling.
Massey says TMAP has been looking at properties roughly within a five-to-six-kilometre radius of Melbourne CBD.
He specifically mentions areas around Brunswick while describing the broader inner-city opportunity.
His reasoning is straightforward.
People still want to live close to employment, transport and amenities.
Rental demand can continue even when buyers are cautious.
That's why Massey finds the disconnect between rents and purchase prices interesting.
“Unit prices have barely moved, but the rents have kept going up.”
Again, that doesn't mean every apartment near Melbourne CBD is automatically a good investment.
Far from it.
Apartment quality can vary enormously.
Some buildings carry high strata costs.
Some have defects.
Some locations still have significant future supply.
Some apartment types have limited owner-occupier appeal.
The opportunity needs to be assessed property by property.
This is one of the best ideas from the episode.
It sounds contradictory.
But it describes a property development cycle.
Imagine a city builds too many apartments.
There are more apartments than buyers and tenants need.
Prices weaken.
Vacancies rise.
Developers struggle to sell new stock.
Projects stop making financial sense.
So developers stop building.
Years pass.
Population keeps growing.
Existing apartments gradually fill.
Vacancies tighten.
Rents rise.
But because construction stopped years earlier, there may not be enough new housing arriving to meet the new level of demand.
The market can move from:
too much supply → little construction → absorbed stock → tighter supply.
That's what Massey believes happened in Brisbane.
And it's one of the dynamics he's watching in Melbourne.
No.
And that's an important distinction.
The Brisbane story is useful because we already know what happened.
Looking at Melbourne today means looking forward.
Those aren't the same thing.
Melbourne units could remain flat longer than expected.
New supply could increase.
Population patterns could change.
Government policy could change.
Taxes and ownership costs could affect investor demand.
Interest rates and credit conditions could change.
Individual buildings can also dramatically underperform their wider suburb.
So the lesson isn't:
Buy Melbourne because it's definitely going to double.
The lesson is:
Learn to identify value before popularity arrives.
Start with the numbers.
Not the hype.
Ask:
| Question | What you're trying to understand |
|---|---|
| What has happened to prices? | Are you early or chasing previous growth? |
| What has happened to rents? | Is tenant demand strengthening? |
| What's the rental yield? | Does the income justify the price? |
| How much new supply is coming? | Could future construction pressure rents or values? |
| Why has the market underperformed? | Is the problem temporary or structural? |
| Who wants to live there? | Is there genuine underlying demand? |
| What's happening to development? | Are developers increasing or reducing supply? |
| Does this specific property stack up? | A good suburb can still contain bad investments |
This is where property investing becomes less exciting.
And much more useful.
Because a market being popular doesn't make every property in it a good investment.
And an unpopular market doesn't make every property a bargain.
Brisbane is a fascinating case study precisely because the opportunity looked least attractive when it was easiest to buy cheaply.
There was oversupply.
There were valuation problems.
There were rental concerns.
Buyers weren't interested.
Developers backed away.
Then conditions changed.
Today, people can look backwards and say:
Of course Brisbane was a great buy.
It wasn't obvious at the time.
That's the point.
Massey's argument is that investors shouldn't simply ask:
What's booming?
They should ask:
Where do the numbers make sense before everybody else wants in?
Right now, TMAP believes parts of Melbourne deserve a closer look.
That doesn't make Melbourne the next Brisbane.
It doesn't guarantee prices will double.
And it doesn't mean you should buy the first cheap apartment you find.
It means the market has characteristics worth investigating.
Because sometimes the best property opportunity isn't the market everybody is talking about.
It's the one everybody is still ignoring.
Massey Archibald and Felise unpack Brisbane's apartment cycle, Melbourne property, oversupply, rental demand and why buying yesterday's winner isn't necessarily the same as finding tomorrow's value on the Teach Me About Property Podcast.
Listen to the Teach Me About Property Podcast on YouTube →
Some Brisbane units may still be suitable investments, but strong historical growth alone doesn't determine whether a property represents good value today. Investors need to assess the purchase price, rental yield, expenses, future supply, location and individual building rather than assuming Brisbane's previous performance will continue.
Massey says TMAP is finding some established units close to Melbourne CBD where prices have experienced limited growth for years while rents have continued increasing. TMAP sees the gap between prices and rents, combined with location and supply dynamics, as something worth investigating rather than a guarantee of future capital growth.
Nobody can reliably guarantee Melbourne will follow Brisbane's trajectory. Massey sees similarities in parts of the market, particularly around previous oversupply and subdued unit prices. However, Melbourne and Brisbane have different market conditions, and past performance in one city cannot reliably predict future performance in another.
Apartment oversupply can increase vacancies, weaken rents, put pressure on prices and make new developments less financially viable. Developers may respond by delaying or cancelling future projects. If population and housing demand continue growing, existing stock can eventually be absorbed and the supply-demand balance can change again.
A flat market can contain opportunities, but weak historical growth isn't automatically a buying signal. Investors should understand why prices haven't moved and examine rental demand, yield, future supply, location, building quality, ownership costs and longer-term fundamentals before deciding whether an individual property represents value.
Teach Me About Property (TMAP) helps everyday Australians understand property, finance and long-term wealth creation.
Through education, mentorship and the Teach Me About Property Podcast, Massey Archibald and Felise explore not just which property markets are moving, but why they move — and how investors can think about price, rent, supply, demand and value before making a decision.
This article provides general educational information only and does not constitute personal financial, credit, tax, legal or investment advice.
Market forecasts, property opinions and investment views attributed to Massey Archibald and Felise reflect the discussion in the relevant Teach Me About Property Podcast episode. References to historical and projected prices should not be interpreted as guarantees of future performance. Property markets, rental returns and individual buildings vary substantially. Consider independent current data, your financial circumstances and appropriate professional advice before making an investment decision.