Brisbane’s most expensive homes are in our suburb, but we still love underdogs and outsiders

August 17, 2026 — 5:00am

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In the late 1990s I lived in a top-floor apartment on New Farm’s Moray Street, aka Brisbane’s Most Liveable Street in 1993. I had a view of the Story Bridge, and lived just across the road from Wilson Outlook Reserve, while only paying $150 a week in rent.

Mind you, the grass of that reserve was routinely covered in discarded syringes from local junkies, so it’s swings and roundabouts.

All Brisbane suburbs change over time, but some change more rapidly than others, and nowhere is that truer than in New Farm.

An area originally known as “Binkin-ba” (meaning “place of the land tortoises”), it was converted into a literal new farm in 1827 by notorious flog-happy British officer Captain Patrick Logan, later killed by Aboriginal people for doing some non-consensual exploring in their backyard.

The farm didn’t last that long, and neither did other features of the suburb over the years: the horse-drawn tram, for instance, which personally I’d love to see make a comeback; or the racecourse which later turned into New Farm Park; or the power station, which still exists in the form of Brisbane Powerhouse; or the deserted quarry at........

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