While Brisbane is still considered affordable for buyers from Sydney and Melbourne, it's becoming increasingly unaffordable for local house hunters, a new report as found.
PRD Nationwide released their latest report on Wednesday and according to author Dr Asti Mardiasmo, Brisbane's affordability scenario was worsening, but not yet unworkable.
"A lot of people may get afraid, and say: 'what's going on?' But at the same time it shows our economic strength and our economic growth," Dr Masdiasmo said.
Dr Masdiasmo's report showed the percentage household income required to meet home loan repayments has reached 27.2 per cent, edging closer to the widely accepted 30 per cent limit.
While the decrease in affordability was concerning, Dr Masdiasmo said Brisbane's affordability was very unlikely to decline at the rate of Sydney and Melbourne.
"Just because of the way our real estate is and the market dynamics are," she added.
The Queensland branch of the Property Club also recently released a measure of affordability, based on a city's median house price and the state's average income.
Branch manager Jack Sewell said Brisbane's ratio was half that of Sydney's.
"It now takes 14.2 times the full time annual salary for someone living in New South Wales to buy a house in Sydney which is more than twice the ratio for Brisbane at 6.3," he said.
"Melbourne is the second least affordable city to buy a home with an annual salary to house price ratio of 10.0 followed by Canberra 6.8, Brisbane at 6.3, Darwin and Hobart, 5.8, Adelaide, 5.7 and Perth the most affordable at 5.4."
Mr Sewell suggested positive economic markers, an upswing in migration and relatively good value would lead to a boom in Brisbane house prices.
"These competitive house prices will lead to further upswing in migration to Brisbane over the coming year which will be the tipping point between supply and demand in favour of property owners," he said.
PRD's report also points buyers towards hotspots for affordable and high performing suburbs.
Dr Masdiasmo said the most affordable suburbs like Deagon, Acacia Ridge, and Rocklea tended to fly under the radar for most buyers.
"Some people didn't even know where Deagon was. Just because I'm pointing you to an affordable hot spot, I'm not pointing you to a No Man's Land-type of suburb," she said. "There is a focus on creating good infrastructure to get people into these affordable hotspots, which is always good."
One of the surprise performers on the higher end of the market was Windsor. It recorded nearly 16 per cent growth on the median house price year on year, up to $855,000.
Windsor is one of McGrath Wilston's principal Craig Lea's areas of expertise. He said the rapid rise in median was an effect of the already popular postcode stabilising after years of low growth.
"A few years back when we had this big development push, naturally the average sale price across the suburb would be lower, now we're finding the level of sales wasn't really there," he said. "We're finding it's normalised a little bit. A few years back there was a lot more unit stock coming through so the sale prices were lower."
Mr Lea agreed the perception of "value for money" real estate in Brisbane was driving interest from southern states.
"There is a prevalence of southern buyers but at the moment there aren't many investors," he said. "They're mainly owner occupiers, moving back from southern markets after working for a while."
