Property prices climb in regions as buyers favour tree and sea change
Homes in regional Australia have recorded stronger price growth than in capital cities in the past three months, as migration from the big smoke to the country continues – even post-lockdown.
Property prices have increased by double digits in the past year in local government areas including the Tweed Valley in NSW, Campaspe in Victoria, Bunbury in Western Australia and Southport in Queensland, CoreLogic data for March shows.
Property prices have risen in the Tweed Valley area, which includes Kingscliff.Credit:
Regional dwelling values increased by 1.8 per cent for the March quarter to a combined median of $620,032, while capital city values had a softer gain of 1.5 per cent to a median of $848,475.
“The regions are just a little bit better than the capital cities now,” CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless said. “The capitals have slowed since mid-last year, while we’ve seen stronger regional markets.”
Lawless said property prices in regional areas were often “dependent on local economic conditions” including agriculture, mining and other industrial activity.
However, he said affordability was also a factor in the regional areas that have had strong growth – along with the “lifestyle element”.
Many of the regional spots in a large property value upswing were attractive to tree- and sea-changers seeking affordable yet picturesque properties, he said.
Plus, some of the top growth areas were within easy commuting distance to capital cities – a factor prized by hybrid workers.
“It’s a legacy of the pandemic – people are still motivated to look for space,” Lawless said. “More people are moving to the regions than are leaving.”
In NSW, for example, slightly more than 27,500 people moved from regional areas to Sydney last year, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows, while 44,733 relocated from the capital to the state’s regions.
Similarly, in Victoria, Melbourne gained just shy of 24,900 people from regional areas in the state, but moves the other way around totalled 33,320.
WA was one of the few states to buck this trend: slightly more people moved from regional areas to Perth (15,927) than vice versa (14,879). But that didn’t stop Bunbury, in the state’s south-west, from posting the strongest annual growth of all regional areas nationally.
Lawless said this was not surprising given similarly strong growth in Perth, but that it was still impressive when considering data from the past decade.
“Over the past 10 years Bunbury has only seen growth of about 3.6 per cent per annum, now it’s 19.5 per cent,” he said.
In NSW, Tweed Heads real estate agent Sophie Carter was unsurprised to hear the Tweed Valley area had annual growth of 11 per cent, which brought the median price there to slightly less than $962,000.
“It’s much better value for money compared to the Gold Coast, compared to Byron Bay – you get more house and you get more land,” Carter said. “All of northern NSW has been undervalued for a really long time.
“The Tweed River system is stunning, Rainbow Bay Beach is the only north-facing beach between here and Noosa, and it’s all within 15 to 20 minutes of a major international airport.”
She said many buyers who were once “die-hard Gold Coast people” were moving to Tweed Heads and surrounds.
The Gold Coast still had some of the strongest price growth for regional Queensland, with Southport clocking a 16.1 per cent annual increase (median $832,858).
In Victoria, the Campaspe area (encompassing Echuca, and between Bendigo and Shepparton) had the largest increase in the state of 10.8 per cent. Still, its median price was only about $450,000, much lower than in Melbourne and many other spots in Victoria.
Nutrien Harcourts Echuca agent Andrew Miller said he had seen more people moving from the capitals, and many of them were originally from regional areas.
“They’ve had a gut-full of the city,” Miller said. “They’re going home because that’s where they fit.”
He had also seen retirees from larger farming properties in western Victoria and southern NSW move to Echuca to take advantage of amenities including a new hospital.
“There are hundreds of places to go out and eat, but it’s still rural and not that far from where they might still have family,” he said.