Cities vs regional: Where should you invest?

Mar 1, 2022

More space, flexible working conditions and affordability have successfully tempted property buyers to Australia’s regional areas, fuelling a surge in property values and drastically reducing selling times.

According to the latest CoreLogic figures, Australia’s 25 largest non-capital city regions continued to achieve unprecedented increases in value. Over the 12 months to January 2022, 24 regions recorded double-digit annual growth for houses, with 18 regions notching up gains in excess of 20%.

The median dwelling value across the combined regions jumped 26.1% in the year to January 2022, outpacing the combined capital city dwelling growth rate of 21.3% for the same period.

The Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven SA4 region in NSW recorded the highest annual regional house value growth in the 12 months to January 2022 at 38.2%, followed by Queensland’s Gold Coast (36.3%) and the Sunshine Coast (35.4%). The lowest yearly growth rate was seen across the Townsville region at 7.8%.

In terms of selling time, the quickest selling region for houses was the Sunshine Coast (Qld), where the median time on the market over the 12 months to January 2022 was 15 days. This was followed by Launceston and North East (Tas), Gold Coast (Qld) and Toowoomba (Qld) where the median time on the market was 16 days. At the other end of the scale, New England and North West (NSW) houses are taking around 53 days to sell.

Looking ahead, according to NAB’s Regional Migration Impacts on Property Report, it is anticipated the pace of migration of capital city residents to regional areas would slow.

“While the affordability, lifestyle and strong infrastructure will continue to pull more capital city residents to the regions, the reintroduction of overseas travel, with borders reopening … and the willingness of many to travel domestically also, is expected to see a moderation in regional migration,” the report said.

If you would like to discuss the Australian property market in more detail, please reach out to the team to organise a time to have a conversation about how Wealthi can help you build a successful property portfolio.

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