Timber roof trusses on a house under construction

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Will Queensland build costs come down before 2032?

Industry

Oct 14, 2026

None of the four quantity surveying firms that publish a Brisbane forecast thinks so. Rider Levett Bucknall, Turner & Townsend, Altus Group and WT Partnership all have costs rising in every year they forecast. They disagree about how fast.

This is a summary of what the public data says as at October 2026, and where the forecasters disagree.

Where costs are now

The Australian Bureau of Statistics tracks what builders charge, state by state. In its producer price figures for the June quarter of 2026:

Queensland house construction prices rose 3.1% in the quarter and 8.0% over the year.
Queensland prices for other residential building, which covers townhouses and apartments, rose 9.0% over the year. That was the highest of any state.
Nationally, house construction rose 5.9% over the year.

A Ray White analysis of the same ABS series, reported in August 2026, put Queensland house construction prices 61% above where they were at the end of 2019. The national figure was 51%.

One detail matters more than the headline. The materials going into a Brisbane house rose 4.4% over the year, on the same ABS release. The price builders charged rose 8.0%. Builders’ prices are rising at close to twice the rate of their materials. The difference is labour and margin, which is why cheaper steel or timber on its own does not fix it.

Why the pressure lasts

Construction Skills Queensland publishes the most detailed public forecast of the state’s construction workload. Its Horizon 2032 report, released in March 2026, says:

The total pipeline rises from about $60 billion in 2025-26 to a peak of about $75 billion in 2027-28, and stays above $65 billion a year after that.
Labour demand rises from about 126,600 workers to 148,300 at the peak.
The shortfall reaches up to 35,000 workers in 2027-28 and averages about 19,100 a year over the seven years to 2031-32.

The previous edition forecast a sharper, earlier peak. The new one is lower, later and longer. The strain is spread across more years.

Housing is the largest user of that labour. The same report has residential demand alone rising from about 64,400 workers to 77,200 in 2027-28. Civil and engineering work peaks later, around 2030-31.

The Games are a smaller part of this than the headlines suggest. The venue program is funded at $7.1 billion across 17 venues, and Construction Skills Queensland estimates about $11.2 billion of venue and village construction to 2031-32. That needs about 750 workers a year at first, about 5,000 a year from 2028-29, and close to 8,000 at the peak in 2030-31. Against a workforce of 148,000 it is a few per cent. The problem is that it lands on a market that is already short, and most of it lands in Brisbane.

What the forecasters say

Four quantity surveying firms publish escalation forecasts for Brisbane. These are forecasts of tender prices for building work, so they are a guide to direction, not a quote for a townhouse project.

Firm	2026	2027	2028	2029
Rider Levett Bucknall (reported September 2026)	5.0%	7.0%	7.0%	7.0%
Turner & Townsend (reported July 2026)	7.2%	7.5%	not published	not published
Altus Group (May and August 2026)	9.0%	8.0%	8.0%	not published
WT Partnership (June 2026)	6.5%	not published	10.0%	not published

Three things stand out.

First, the lowest number on the table is 5%. No firm forecasts a year of falling prices, or a flat one.

Second, they compound. Seven per cent a year for four years is about 31%.

Third, none of the four has published a Brisbane forecast past 2029, and we could not find one from anyone else. For 2030 to 2032 there is no published number to cite.

What could slow it down

There are real forces working the other way. None had shown up in the June quarter prices, which were still rising 8% to 9% a year.

Interest rates. The Reserve Bank raised the cash rate to 4.60% in September, its fourth rise of 2026, and said it will go further if needed. Inflation was 4.0% over the year to August. The Housing Industry Association has pushed its forecast of a Queensland housing recovery out to late 2027. Fewer starts means less competition for trades. It also means a higher holding cost on every month of a program.

Competition between builders. Rider Levett Bucknall reports that contractors in most cities are absorbing cost rises to win work. Its Queensland director said in March 2026 that there was a narrow window for residential projects to secure competitive pricing before escalation in the south-east picks up at the end of the year.

Policy. The state has removed the Best Practice Industry Conditions from government projects and accepted, in full or in principle, 51 of the 64 recommendations from the Queensland Productivity Commission’s construction inquiry. That inquiry found construction productivity had fallen 9% since 2018. Existing enterprise agreements still carry the old conditions, and we could not find a published measure of any cost effect from the reforms so far.

Materials. Altus Group reported that steel was soft in mid-2026, but anti-dumping duties on imported reinforcing bar were expected to reach tenders from the September quarter. Structural timber was still rising.

More hands. Skilled migration and factory-built housing both start from a very small base. Construction-sponsored visa holders were reported at under 1% of the national construction workforce at the end of 2025. The state’s Cairns housing factory was reported to have produced about 30 modular homes since 2024.

What this means for a feasibility

This is general information, not advice. Three practical points follow from the data.

A build rate has a date on it. At 8% a year, a quote or a rate per square metre from twelve months ago is already materially out.
Escalation and contingency are different lines. Contingency covers what you did not foresee on site. Escalation is the forecast rise between today and the day each trade is let. A program that runs into 2027-28 runs into the forecast peak.
Time is a cost twice. A delay adds interest at a higher rate and moves the build into a dearer year.

None of this needs a forecast you believe. It needs a feasibility that shows what happens if build cost moves and the sale price does not. That is why BDRCK runs every site across a grid of both, not a single number.

What to watch next

The ABS September quarter producer price figures, due in late October 2026.
The 2026 Queensland Major Projects Pipeline Report, expected in November 2026.
The next round of quantity surveyor updates, which will show whether the gap between the lowest and highest forecasts is closing.