Report: Around the grounds; outlook for markets across Aus and NZ diverge

Across Australia and New Zealand, we have seen wide, enduring gaps in performance persisting across multiple seasons, especially off the sporting field, across both regional economies and residential and commercial real estate returns.

For Perth and Brisbane, robust population gains and a strong outlook for mining / infrastructure / Olympics investments will hold these markets near the top of the table. The challenge here is accessing the local opportunities and competing for building capacity.

For Sydney, its middling market performance is being constrained by housing affordability, although new infrastructure works and a slightly more permissive planning environment should support a stronger pace of development supply over coming years.

For Melbourne and Auckland, which have struggled with localised pricing downturns in recent years, we are seeing more positive signs of residential market activity in 2026, given improving population growth profiles and a partial reset in housing affordability.

Given these persistent performance gaps, there is plentiful scope for alpha returns, just by picking the right locations and market segments. Having a well-established local team is an important prerequisite for successfully sourcing deals and deploying capital.

For portfolio investors, it is important to set sufficiently wide geographical limits, to take advantage of the best scoring opportunities across different regions, which are often sitting outside of the largest markets of Sydney and Melbourne.