According to the ANZ-Property Council’s latest survey, sentiment in Queensland rose by one index point to 114 points in the December quarter, remaining in positive territory and sitting just above the Australian average of 113 index points. A score of 100 index points was considered neutral.  

The council’s Queensland executive director, Jen Williams, said Queensland was the only state to record an increase in confidence over the quarter whereas nationally the industry was suggesting 2023 would be a poor year.

She said continued interstate migration and the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games provided a great foundation for another year of action for the property industry in Queensland in 2023.

There had also been commitment from the State Government to address the housing crisis and Williams said that given the industry continued to rate housing supply and affordability as the most critical issues for the State Government to address, the housing strategy “clearly had a positive impact on sentiment”.  

The outlook for the national economy was below pre-pandemic levels and at a state level only Western Australia and the ACT had a positive outlook.

Housing construction was expected to eventually turn down as capacity constraints allowed builders to work through the backlog.

“A net balance of 45 per cent of firms now expect finance availability to deteriorate, equal with the low seen in the June quarter,” ANZ said.

“The difficult combination of sharply rising costs and fixed price contracts is creating financial pressure in the sector. These pressures are likely feeding into concerns about property finance squeeze.”

Concerns about costs have eased but were still high. More than 30 per cent of respondents expected costs to increase by between 5 and 10 per cent.

While painting a fairly dour outlook for the economy and the state of the sector, companies were more confident about their own prospects, but their optimism was fading, the ANZ said.