Cush for Comment – Brisbane home prices to go for gold in lead-up to Olympics

I wasn’t committed enough to set the alarm for 3 am last Saturday morning, but I did switch the TV on around 5 am to watch the last one hour of the Olympic opening ceremony.

Like billions of other people around the world, I saw the Eiffel Tower light up, the Seine River decorated by athletes and the Paris skyline gloriously sparkle.

Like most of the audience watching from around the world, I was familiar with those monuments and Paris’s beauty. But I reflected that in eight years time, that same audience would be focused on our country and specifically, Brisbane.

However, most of them would be seeing the Story Bridge, the Kangaroo Point Cliffs and the ease of bush to beach for the very first time. The attraction to Brisbane and its climate is obvious to its citizens, and now to the thousands of people pouring across its border.

This has seen Brisbane prices already produce a steep 40 per cent increase over the last four years and predictions are that there will be another 50 per cent before the Olympics arrive in 2032. So when I marched out to call auctions last Saturday, I reminded the buyers that in eight years time the world’s greatest marketing event would be focused on their city.

It was the middle of winter and most of the crowd were in shorts and t-shirts, the sky was a gorgeous colour of blue and the benefits of buying before the event were becoming strikingly obvious. We sold 5/5 that day. As the momentum builds toward the games, the real question is what will happen to prices once the world has turned up.