Australia’s Property Crossroads — and the Abundance Mindset
As I sit down to write my final property update of the year, I’ve just returned from the Melbourne Building Expo. Of the many experts who spoke with energy and optimism about the future of the Victorian market, one well-placed founder of a large property investment concern distilled the problem bedevilling the state’s present situation into a single word: sentiment. And not of the positive sort. High taxes, heavy regulation, and a stark spotlight on rising crime are crippling investment in a state carrying more debt than all others combined. The issue isn’t just housing affordability; it’s availability and not only in Victoria. It’s arguably the single biggest challenge facing Australia today.
Shortages are everywhere, not just housing, critical retail, and infrastructure are behind even as costs are up. Collectively there is incredible talent across the property sector, I know firsthand, I speak to you every day. Arguably no sector has done so much to advance Australia’s recent growth, but the metrics are clear, we who want our country not just to survive but thrive, must yet do more. We must build. Build well, build fast, build smart. Government needs to not just partner, but visibly, loudly lead at the federal level united with the visionary property leaders who are confidently helming their organisations into our collective future.
Executive movements are beginning, slowly, to signal the next phase. After two years of consolidation, boards are increasingly moving beyond purely defensive roles and toward leaders with growth and capital-allocation focus even while maintaining a cost-savings discipline. We’ve seen divisional restructuring and executive changes at Fletcher Building; its Australian Division has been disestablished and integrated into two new trans-Tasman operations. At Generation Development Group, Grant Hackett has taken the Group CEO role from 1 January 2025. And at REA Group, Cameron McIntyre will become CEO from 3 November 2025, succeeding Owen Wilson after more than six years in the top job. While these are not wholesale overhauls, they signal deliberate repositioning in companies quietly gearing up for growth.
Developers and investors aren’t exuberant but they’re preparing. Pipelines remain thin, costs high, yet there’s a palpable readiness for the next upswing. Mirvac recently warned of a “construction downturn ahead” as infrastructure megaprojects crowd out home-building capacity. It’s an irony of abundance talk that our ambition to build more of everything may have left too few builders for the homes we need most.
In Canberra, the conversation has turned to Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, now circulating through the Labor caucus. Its thesis to have the future we want, we must build more of what we need has become shorthand for a new liberalism that builds. Whether rhetoric turns into resolve will define this decade. Productivity data show we’re constructing fewer homes per worker than in the 1990s, even with 700,000 more workers in the sector. Commercial property, meanwhile, is redefining rather than retreating. Offices are not facing extinction, rather they are being creatively reimagined; industrial remains the golden child with sub-3 per cent vacancy; retail has quietly rebounded, Westfield centres are 99.7 per cent leased with record sales.
At Blenheim Partners, (an executive search and advisory firm) we don’t just believe this moment belongs to leaders with foresight, we know it. The forces shaping our built environment climate, digitisation, migration, and regulation will reward courage over caution. To borrow from that abundance spirit: the future won’t build itself.
If your organisation is preparing for growth, succession or transformation, we’d welcome a conversation about how the right leadership can turn sentiment into tangible progress. Reach out for a chat with me. No high-pressure sales here, just inspiration and a shared vision for the best possible place we all are so fortunate to call home.
Seph McKenna
Partner, Insurance, Property and Media