That’s valid. I don’t think this is inherently a reason why apartments could never work for a family though, but you are right that the supply of appartments with 3 or more beds is quite low.
There almost nonexistent.
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You’re more likely to see 3+ bedrooms in town houses which is why the effective ban on them in BCC is so asinine.
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Larger apartments are becoming more common as Brisbane becomes more like a true city rather than a sprawling country town. In older established cities apartment living is common for families.
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Then just build apartments with 3-4 bedrooms, plenty of other countries do so, where I am from (Jordan) people tend to have larger families and households than in Australia but probably at least 90% of housing stocks are apartments, to be clear our urban environments also have problems like nearly nonexistent greenspace which is a problem of course but I don’t think that that greenspace is at the expense of apartments, places like Singapore do apartments with greenspace quite well and even a country like Saudi Arabia which might have an even more car centric urban form still has about half their population living in apartment.
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They absolutely exist in Europe and Asia. Many countries have had generations of families growing up in apartments, they don’t all look at them as places for singles and childless couples like we do.
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There aren’t many detached houses in Surfers or Broadbeach (and increasingly fewer), but no shortage of children living in these areas. If you want to kick a ball around, go to the beach or one of many parks. Similar principle everywhere else - the Coasts just have the advantage of a lot of waterfront public land which is effectively off limits and so will always be State land outside little pockets (eg the southern parts of The Spit). No reason areas not quite as coastal can’t achieve the same outcome.
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Brisbane city council has about 300,000 detached houses, about 100,000 apartments, and around 100,000 townhouses.
If we approximate dwelling density (it can vary on heaps of factors so we’ll choose mid range figures). Dwelling density of detached houses is around 15 per hectare, townhouses average around 30 per hectare, low rise apartments around 100 per hectare, and high rise around 200 per hectare.
If you could overt a long period of time replace 100,000 detached homes with higher density options. 70,000 of those houses could become 140,000 townhouses, 20,000 could become 130,000 low rise apartments, and the remaining 10,000 could become another 130,000 high rise apartments.
So a net 300,000 home increase with most at lower densities appropriate for convenient suburban areas. The same process could occur spread over surrounding councils (Logan, Ipswich, Moreton Bay, Redlands) giving 600,000 additional homes total and sufficient to house 1.2 million additional people with no new urban sprawl needed.
Brisbane council has pushed high density development in concentrated areas but done a very very poor job of enabling gentle density in convenient locations across the city. As a result townhouses and apartments have gone up in value significantly and closed the gap with detached houses because lots of people prefer this living option and their aren’t enough of them.
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A lot has changed in the last decade for Brisbane.
That requires the already busy parents to then have to supervise their children. That said, maybe people who don’t have time for kids probably shouldnt have them
adjust for price range. If I can buy an apartment for $1M then might as well buy a standalone house for the same price. The problem is we lack affordable apartments or affordable housing in general.
Only 24 3 bed properties in Greater Brisbane at or under $700k and a lot of these are either on the outskirts, in crime ridden areas or are flood prone.
Same story for rentals commanding $600 a week or less that are 3 bed apartments. Only 31 available. Its like the only choice future generations will have is either long term renting, or leaving south east queensland entirely.
In comparison here is Greater Melbourne:
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Not sure what the point of all that is, except that housing is unaffordable, but the fact remains that there are multi-bedroom apartments and many people would live in them if they could live close to their jobs and the rest of their lives. The solution to lack of housing in a big city is not more and more and more clearing of forests or agricultural land further and further out just so everyone can have a lawn to mow.
We need more affordable housing in the city where people want to live. We can do that without increasing the urban footprint at all and still have lots of detached housing.
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I’d suggest the main reason why we don’t see a lot of 3-4 bed apartments on the market is that we haven’t yet saturated demand for smaller apartments.
Kids can’t really help with the mortgage so family-sized apartments tend to have a lower price per square metre…
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Should add it would be nice if realestate maps had a mode like Google maps that explicitly showed public transport corridors like rail lines
Could relax zoning laws and cut red tape a bit 
don’t worry, those who know they’re looking for that know where the stations are
True. It’s called research.