This week’s property news is dedicated to the principle of “be careful what you wish for”.

For instance, property prices are falling everywhere except Darwin. But weren’t we complaining about housing being unaffordable?

And younger Australians are apparently delaying retirement because of the cost of their mortgages.  Why are they even thinking about giving up work?

And apparently modular homes – built in a way that you can add to them, like sofas – are allowing multi-generational families to live together longer.  Say hello to free child-minding and low-cost aged care as a trade-off.

These are just some of the news stories in this week’s report from Leftfield Communications.

Free Reads

Domain

This multistorey residential new build helps regreen a built-up urban pocket of Surry Hills
Domain features a new multistorey Surry Hills building that helps regreen a dense inner-Sydney pocket, with landscape designer Tom Smith rewilding an unlikely urban site.

Everyone wants to live in Surry Hills. So why are unit prices falling?
Everyone wants to live in Surry Hills, yet its median unit price fell 7.6 per cent to $855,000 over the year, Domain reports, a reminder that lifestyle appeal and unit values do not always move together.Dan F.

ABC Online

Clifftop at Hepburn properties allegedly installed without permission, prompting council dispute
Luxury tourist villas near Hepburn were allegedly installed in a bushfire-prone area without council permission, with the business and its co-owner now in a legal dispute.

Modular solution for multi-generational living as housing crisis changes way we live
A feature on modular homes enabling multi-generational living, as the housing crisis reshapes how families share space across a single block.

Realestate.com.au

‘Spend one night here’: Anger explodes over new Western Sydney airport night flights
Acreage owners in Sydney’s outer west say relentless overnight flights from the new 24/7 Western Sydney International airport are jolting them awake, as anger over the noise grows.

Young Aussies delaying retirement to buy first homes
Younger Australians are entering the market with larger deposits and may be delaying retirement to buy a first home, Great Southern Bank research shows.

Aussie homeowners think falling prices won’t hurt them
Many Australian homeowners believe falling prices will not affect them,

Wave of construction firm closures threatens Australia’s national housing target
A wave of construction firm closures is threatening the national housing target, with business survival rates at their lowest in a decade as industry confidence falls.

Wild rate war looms as homebuyer numbers collapse
New mortgage application growth has stalled, with the big four banks seeing double-digit falls as investors retreat, and APRA data pointing to a looming rate war for the buyers who remain.

Day of reckoning: Albo v tradies
Some big real estate players have blamed Albanese government policy for the building industry’s crisis, after more than 1500 NSW construction firms shut in the past financial year.

Development approval filed for 161 units by Brisbane’s latest lifestyle district
Development approval has been filed for a 20-storey, 161-apartment complex beside one of South Brisbane’s most anticipated new precincts.

Townsville units surge 19.27pc as buyers squeezed in capitals
Townsville’s unit market has surged 19.27 per cent in median price over the year, defying a downturn hitting every state capital as buyers priced out of the cities look north.

The 48-hour tower: Inside the radical ‘Tetris’ build solving Qld’s housing crisis
It took a 3am police escort, rolling road closures and just 48 hours to drop a 15-storey tower core onto the Gold Coast skyline, with developer Graya trucking in pre-cast modules in a radical “Tetris” build.

Urban Developer – Partly Free

Sydney’s Bays West Design Competition Flooded with Entries
A competition to design Sydney’s new 8500-home inner-city suburb at Bays West has drawn an overwhelming response, with more than 165 entries lodged for the White Bay site 2km from the CBD.

Frank Reveals Fourth Project for Brisbane’s Teneriffe Pocket
Frank Developments has filed its fourth application for Brisbane’s Teneriffe pocket, extending a pipeline along Wyandra Street into neighbouring Newstead.

First Apartment Building in Hygge’s Adelaide Double-Play Approved
The first of two Hygge Property housing schemes has been approved for a former shopping-centre site in the leafy Adelaide suburb of Malvern, following last month’s eight-storey approval.

Morris Property Group Files Plans for Mermaid Beach Highrise
Gold Coast developer Barry Morris has filed plans for a new Mermaid Beach highrise, undeterred by a landmark court ruling that threatens billions in Gold Coast highrise development.

Scully Backs Private Credit, Builders as Bathla Collapse Plays Out
NSW planning minister Paul Scully has backed the role of private credit and builders as Bathla’s collapse plays out, despite the flow-on effects of frozen and restricted fund redemptions.

TQM’s Three-Tower Plan for Sydney’s South-West Wins Green Light
A three-tower project up to 21 storeys has won approval in Sydney’s south-west, with TQM’s 187-apartment Hurstville scheme adding 61 units to previously greenlit plans.

Deicorp Cuts Ribbon on First Stage of $5bn Melrose Park Transformation
Deicorp has cut the ribbon on the first stage of its $5 billion Melrose Park transformation in Sydney, delivering 494 apartments and 30,000sqm of retail, with a light rail station to follow.

Skyhold Plots ‘Sculptural’ 30-Storey South Brisbane Tower
Brisbane developer Skyhold has unveiled a sculptural 30-storey, 93-apartment tower overlooking Musgrave Park at its South Brisbane site, again teaming with architects 111.

Time & Place Files Reworked Plans for $500m Northcote Plaza Scheme
Time & Place has filed reworked plans for three residential towers at its $500 million Northcote Plaza redevelopment, 5km from Melbourne’s CBD.

Apartments.com.au

First look: New 139-apartment plans revive long-stalled Campbelltown city centre site
New plans for 139 apartments, including 23 affordable, would revive a long-stalled Campbelltown site, superseding a mixed-use scheme approved almost a decade ago but never built.

First Look: Sherlock Construction pitches apartments for low-rise Deception Bay
Sherlock Construction has lodged a nine-storey, 60-apartment building for a low-rise Deception Bay street better known for single-storey weatherboard homes.

Pay-walled

The Australian Financial Review

NextDC boss says data centre build times will halve to nine months
NextDC expects to halve its data centre build times to nine months as it signs more hyperscalers, letting it bill customers faster, chief executive Craig Scroggie said, after the company swung back into profit.

‘Like a foot on the hose’: What WA bosses told Chalmers about migrants
Western Australia’s top building figures used a Labor fundraising dinner to press Treasurer Jim Chalmers on migration, likening the slowdown in skilled arrivals to “a foot on the hose” for the industry.

Bathla lenders feel a GFC-like vibe as asset values head south
One of Bathla’s largest lenders says the collapsed developer’s homes will hit the market worth up to 15 per cent less than assumed, describing a GFC-like feeling as the weakening market drags asset values down.

Threat of RBA rate hikes looms as economy nears speed limit
The economy may still be running hot enough to fuel inflation, with economists upgrading growth forecasts ahead of the national accounts and renewed talk that the Reserve Bank could yet lift rates again.

Bathla collapse exposes private credit investor’s perfect storm
Bathla’s collapse has exposed private credit to its first real test, an industry born in the 2010s on rising prices and cheap money now facing higher rates and a housing downturn.

The winding road to Bathla’s riches leads to this decrepit unit block
An AFR colour piece traces the Bathla founders’ trail to a decrepit, permanently shut shopfront in suburban western Sydney, the words “Me, help” scrawled in its dusty windows, a bleak counterpoint to the development empire’s former riches.

Bathla ‘won’t last until the end of the week’ as staff go unpaid
Administrators have until Thursday to find emergency funding for Bathla Group and avoid one of the country’s biggest real estate failures, with staff agreeing to keep working unpaid in the meantime.

Former Carnival boss Ann Sherry vows to turn Housing Australia around
Ann Sherry, the former Carnival boss and newly appointed chair of Housing Australia, has vowed to turn the struggling federal agency around and ramp up delivery towards its 40,000 affordable-dwelling target.

ATO finds 6000 property sales that may have skipped paying tax
The tax office is chasing the owners of 6000 investment properties sold in the five years to mid-2025 who failed to lodge returns disclosing the sale, with each potentially owing tens of thousands in capital gains tax.

Fake document scandal puts major Bathla projects under cloud
At least five major Bathla projects are under a cloud after their environmental certifier allegedly falsified documents required for construction, complicating efforts to save the developer’s pipeline of about 14,000 homes.

The Australian

‘Ditch superfund job, or risk conflict’, Libs tell Labor’s handpicked Housing Australia chair Ann Sherry
The Coalition says Labor’s handpicked Housing Australia chair Ann Sherry should resign from the Super Members Council board to avoid a real or perceived conflict, given super funds stand to benefit from the government’s housing funding.

Property downturn to force out ‘charlatan’ agents who merely rode the boom times
The downturn is expected to force out the “charlatan” agents who merely rode the boom, with insiders tipping the residential sales and buyer’s-agent workforce could shrink by as much as a quarter.

NSW Labor MP Anthony D’Adam calls for Chris Minns to buy Bathla after baulking at bailout
NSW Labor MP Anthony D’Adam has broken the government’s silence on Bathla, urging Premier Chris Minns to make a bold intervention and buy the collapsed developer after the state baulked at a bailout.

Property prices plunge across Sydney and Melbourne with just nine suburbs spared
Just nine of the 1057 suburbs across Sydney and Melbourne recorded price growth over winter, with hundreds of thousands wiped from values in pockets such as Terrey Hills and Portsea as sellers enter spring on the back foot.

The Sydney Morning Herald

First home buyers battle it out for $1.5 million beachside apartment
A 1960s two-bedroom walk-up in Clovelly passed in at auction before selling shortly afterwards for $1.5 million to first-home buyers on Saturday.

Why this slice of land on Sydney Harbour might be harder to sell than expected
Endangered trees, powerful owls and historic scout halls have become the new frontline over the future of HMAS Penguin, the SMH reports, with heritage and environmental assessments complicating the federal plan to sell the harbourside site.

The Age

Planning experts warn $1b cut will leave Victoria spending $33b on a train line people avoid
Planning experts warn Premier Ben Carroll’s billion-dollar cut to the Suburban Rail Loop will lengthen travel times and deter commuters, the Age reports, leaving Victoria spending $33 billion on a line people may avoid, as councils revolt over the changes.

These luxury Brunswick homes were already approved. Now they’re in a flood zone
Pre-sold Brunswick developments already under construction face fresh Melbourne Water assessments after sweeping flood-mapping changes pushed the properties into flood zones.

Labor wants to build 525,000 inner-city homes. These councils say they can’t afford it
Melbourne’s inner-city councils say they will withdraw support for the state’s plan to funnel a million new residents into the area unless they receive close to a billion dollars for new infrastructure.

Ten years of planning ditched as Arden is put on fast track to a sky-high future
Ten years of planning has been set aside as the Carroll government fast-tracks three towers of 37, 27 and 24 storeys around Arden station, the first approvals for the underground precinct.

The Brisbane Times

Strangler fig-inspired high-rise planned for South Brisbane
A vine-inspired residential tower, Milton 1, has been proposed for a South Brisbane site, Brisbane Times reports, as developers move to use new planning controls designed to lift inner-city housing supply.

Commercial Real Estate

Inside a unique Springvale warehouse with a luxury apartment upstairs
Commercial Real Estate goes inside a unique Springvale warehouse topped by a luxury one-bedroom apartment, its stone benchtops and timber floors belying its industrial-park setting.

Church-owned Gosford super-site hits market with plans for apartments, hotel and health hub
A church-owned 12,500sqm West Gosford holding has hit the market with plans for apartments, a 124-room hotel and medical and commercial space.

The Gold Coast Bulletin

‘Not immune’: Gold Coast home price hits quarterly downturn
Cracks have appeared in Queensland’s most expensive market, with economists warning the Gold Coast is “not immune” after its first negative quarter in years as buyers hit a borrowing wall.

Niecon Group reveals plans for its new ‘Reflections’ tower on the Broadwater
The Niecon Group has revealed plans for Reflections, a $168 million Broadwater tower that would be the Gold Coast dynasty’s 24th development.

Council planning chief wants to scrap 50 per cent developer height bonus
The Gold Coast’s deputy mayor wants to scrap the 50 per cent height bonus available to developers, to ease concerns about the city’s growth.

The West Australian

Housing decline ‘larger and faster than expected’: CBA calls national price correction
Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s biggest home lender, expects Sydney and Melbourne prices to fall more than 10 per cent, The West Australian reports, calling a national correction it says higher rates and the budget tax changes will make larger and faster than earlier thought.

Perth’s apartment shortfall is really a suburb-by-suburb problem
Perth’s population is growing faster than any other capital, yet Charter Keck Cramer analysis suggests the city will deliver only about half the apartments needed, a shortfall that varies sharply suburb by suburb.

The Newcastle Herald

23 homes to become 187 apartments in suburban affordable housing plan
Social housing developer Hume Housing plans to bulldoze 23 ageing single-storey homes and replace them with 187 apartments across two Newcastle sites, planning documents reveal.

The Illawarra Mercury

‘Stressed about the unknown’: Oak Flats residents’ fears regarding rezoning
Oak Flats residents are anxious about a proposal to rezone their area from R2 to R3, the Illawarra Mercury reports, with one 39-year local worried about the unknown.

Why Wollongong residents fear high-rise boom will strain infrastructure
The average Wollongong resident is unaware of the scale of high-rise planned for the CBD, a public meeting heard, with a 38-storey tower, a near-99-metre tower and pairs of 19-storey buildings in the pipeline.

Step inside: exclusive reveal of new Wollongong penthouses with starting prices of $6m
The penthouses in Wollongong’s boutique Easterly project, by Sydney developer Level 33, have been unveiled with starting prices of $6 million.

‘That doesn’t sound right’: Resident pushes back on 38-storey towers
A Wollongong apartment resident is pushing back on plans for 38-storey towers, objecting to their growing height rather than the buildings themselves.

The St George & Sutherland Shire Leader

Young resident challenges state push for Mortdale high-rises
Mortdale resident Montana Mackie, 29, says she is one of the reasons for the state’s housing focus, but questions whether the government is really listening to what young people want.