If you belief the marketing spin, the Brisbane inner-city apartment market is undergoing an impressive resurgence. But if you look at the figures behind the rhetoric, it?s still languishing at levels way below the good old days in the first half of the decade.

The reality is that the Brisbane inner-city market has spent three years bumping along the bottom of the apartment sales cycle ? and it?s still not out of it. One symptom of this is that the current average sale price continues a two-year downward trend, with the average falling from $860,000 in March 2005 to $725,000 in December 2006, to $610,000 in March 2007, and to $595,000 in June 2007.

The biggest evidence, however, lies in sales volumes. According to the June Quarter 2007 Brisbane Unit Report from Colliers PRD, back in the June 2001 quarter the inner-city market delivered over 900 apartment sales. In the March 2002 quarter there were over 800 sales and in the June 2002 quarter sales topped 1,000.

Fast forward to the second half of 2003 and both the September and December quarters provided 700-800 apartment sales.