Tiny Home Boom in Queensland's Sunshine Coast

Queensland’s coastal strip, from the Gold Coast through the Sunshine Coast and up to the Wide Bay, has been one of Australia’s hottest migration corridors for years. That steady inflow of people chasing lifestyle and value has collided with a chronic housing shortage, pushing buyers and councils to look for faster, smarter ways to add supply. Enter tiny homes: factory-built, code-compliant homes that can be delivered and installed far quicker than traditional builds. And tiny homes are taking off with a boom on the Sunshine Coast.

How do we know this? Because we're installing tiny homes from Brisbane to Bundaberg. You can view a few of our uploaded projects here.

A progress photo of one of the cute and functional tiny homes we've installed between Brisbane and Bundaberg.

Housing demand has outpaced supply

Population growth into Queensland remains among the strongest in the country. Queensland’s population grew by about 2.0% in the year to September 2024, driven largely by overseas and interstate migration (according to the Queensland Government Statistician’s Office (QGSO)). Net interstate migration alone accounted for roughly a quarter of total growth over that period.

Much of that movement lands in coastal regions. For years, the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast have ranked among Australia’s top regional destinations for net internal migration, a trend confirmed across multiple releases from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and independent indexes. While momentum ebbs and flows, the sea-change drawcard remains clear.

On the ground, the pressure shows up in rentals. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland's (REIQ’s) June quarter 2025 vacancy report put Queensland at ~1.0% vacancy, still 'tight' by any measure, with sub-1.5% readings common on the Sunshine Coast, evidence of a market struggling to house new arrivals.

Meanwhile, the ABS reports the build pipeline has been inconsistent. Dwelling approvals in July 2025 were down month-on-month nationally, a reminder that traditional supply responses are lagging population growth. And do you really need council approvals? Yeah, you do. Class 1A dwellings require council approval, and we do this for you.

What that means?  Strong inflows + tight vacancies + a lumpy approvals pipeline = a genuine coastal housing shortfall. That’s the backdrop powering interest in tiny homes.

Imagine everyone in Melbourne deciding, at once, that they’ve had enough of traffic, AFL arguments, and grey skies, and turning up on your local Sunshine Coast beach with a surfboard and a Labrador. That’s basically the housing market right now.

Affordability: cost control through speed and certainty

Tiny housing isn’t a silver bullet for price, but it does target the biggest drivers of cost blowouts: time, weather, and labour. One way we speed things from the ground up is with screw piers.

Because most of the build happens off-site, often in a controlled factory, site works and fabrication run in parallel, compressing total project time and reducing weather delays, which are major cost risks in coastal climates. Industry case studies in Brisbane have demonstrated dramatic program savings; one mid-rise project erected its structural system in 11 days and halved the overall program (eight months vs. a typical sixteen), illustrating the speed potential of industrialised construction methods.

Australia’s building authorities are leaning in, too. The Australian Building Codes Board’s handbook on prefabricated, modular and offsite construction highlights quality, efficiency and compliance pathways for offsite methods, an important signal for lenders and certifiers that modular can meet the same National Construction Code (NCC) requirements as conventional builds. Less rework and better QA upstream help contain costs.

At the policy level, the Federal Government has explicitly linked modular and prefab to national housing targets, allocating funding and streamlining measures to help scale capacity. That ecosystem support is designed to lower friction, and ultimately costs, for buyers and developers who choose tiny home builds.

What this means? Faster build programs mean fewer months paying rent and a mortgage, and less exposure to price escalation. Factory repeatability can reduce material waste and site variations. Those savings don’t guarantee a cheaper sticker price in every case, but they provide meaningful levers to keep total project costs in check.

Think of it like ordering a meal kit versus waiting for Nonna to make lasagne from scratch. Both taste good, but with the meal kit you’re eating in 30 minutes, not six hours after the sauce has 'rested'.

Lifestyle: coastal living, done smarter

People aren’t just chasing cheaper homes. They’re chasing better living. Queensland’s coastal communities offer beaches, outdoor lifestyles, and strong local amenities. Tiny homes align with that ethos in a few practical ways:

• Design flexibility: Modules can be configured for narrow or sloping coastal blocks, added in stages, or re-planned to suit multi-generational living; important for families arriving from southern capitals and for locals looking to keep loved ones close.

• Climate resilience: Coastal councils increasingly emphasise flood- and storm-resilient design. Queensland’s Flood Resilient Building Guidance provides clear principles for materials, floor heights and services placement, requirements that can be engineered into tiny homes upfront for consistency and speed.

• Sustainability: Offsite construction can reduce waste and improve thermal performance through tighter fabrication tolerances, supporting lower running costs, valuable when energy prices bite. Research and Australian case studies point to significant waste reductions with offsite methods.

• Downsizing doesn't mean giving up. It means gaining freedom.

Picture building a giant Lego set, except instead of stepping on stray bricks and cursing, you end up with a surf-shack-meets-dream-home that’s cyclone-rated and has space for the paddleboards.

Why the boom is specifically coastal

Coastal Queensland is where demand, planning, and practicality intersect:

• High demand nodes: Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast continue to attract movers for work-from-anywhere lifestyles, while Wide Bay (Hervey Bay/Bundaberg) offers relative affordability. Even when the pace of inflows wobbles, the preference for sea-change locations remains entrenched.

• Approvals and capacity: With national approvals volatile and local builders stretched, modular factories can add capacity without relying solely on local site labour, helping coastal councils convert approvals to actual keys-in-doors faster.

• Policy tailwinds: Federal support for prefab tiny homes under the National Housing Accord aims to accelerate delivery, which is especially attractive to growth hotspots struggling with rental scarcity.

Coastal councils are basically parents of hungry teenagers: 'Dinner needs to be on the table in 20 minutes, and it better be filling!' Tiny homes are the frozen pizza that saves the night - tasty and fills the need. Traditional builds? More like slow-cooked brisket . . . delicious, but you’ll starve before it’s ready.

What this means for buyers and councils

Buyers get a path to new housing with more predictable timelines and lower risk of weather or labour delays, critical in places where rental bridging is tough due to ~1% vacancies.

Councils and planners gain an additional delivery mechanism that still meets the NCC and local resilience guidelines, while helping to close the supply gap faster.

It’s like everyone wins. Buyers get their beach house sooner, councils get fewer angry phone calls, and tradies don’t have to hoist the frame in the rain. Win-win-win.

TL;DR:

Queensland’s southeast and central coastal communities are magnets for lifestyle-driven migration, but supply hasn’t kept up. Tight vacancies and an uneven approvals pipeline have created a window for modular housing to step in with speed, certainty, and resilience, without compromising compliance or quality. With policy support strengthening and industrialised building methods maturing, you can expect tiny homes to keep growing from a niche to a mainstream solution along the coast.

So, let's get started. Drop us a line on 0477 409 449, or contact us.

Sources: QGSO population growth briefs and dashboards; ABS Building Approvals; REIQ Vacancy Reports; ABC and industry reporting on regional migration; ABCB Prefabricated/Modular Handbook; federal announcements on modular/prefab support; and case studies of industrialised construction in Brisbane.