Australia is facing a second exodus from unaffordable big cities, with south-east Queensland the main focus for those fleeing Sydney and Melbourne for good.
The Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast are the country’s top two destinations for city-dwellers moving to a regional area, according to a report by the Regional Institute of Australia.
They were followed by Moorabool, an area northwest of Melbourne that includes towns such as Bacchus Marsh; Lake Macquarie, south of Newcastle; and the Victorian regional city of Geelong.
Those who move to a regional area are most likely to be between the ages of 28 and 43, the time when people are most likely to get married and have children.
The exodus, which follows an earlier movement of young people away from the two largest cities during Covid, is expected to have a significant impact on families as millennials move away from their baby boomer parents to have children of their own.
“In terms of Sydneysiders, Millennials are leading the expansion into the regions,” the report said.
Liz Ritchie, chief executive of the Regional Australia Institute, said the move from big cities to regional areas was more than a passing fad brought on by Covid.
“This population movement can no longer be seen as a side effect of years of confinement,” he said. “A social change is taking place.”
Australia is facing a second wave of exodus from unaffordable big cities amid fears it will worsen a national housing shortage.
Dr Tony Matthews, a professor of urban planning at Brisbane’s Griffith University, said the influx of young people from Sydney and Melbourne to the Gold Coast would likely lead to more high-rise apartments near the beach.
South-east Queensland has been grappling with a housing shortage, with Dr Matthews noting there are “too many people wanting to move and too few properties available”.
“If you can get to the Gold Coast, you’re likely to have a better lifestyle, you’ll have to travel less and you’ll have more time to spend on the beach,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
“Whenever there are demographic pressures and you don’t want to continue using more and more land, then really the only solution that you have with urban planning is greater density.”
Gold Coast real estate is now more expensive than suburbs in major capital cities – the median house price in Elanora rose 16.8 per cent over the past year to $1.385 million, making it as expensive as homes in Sydney’s congested western suburbs.
Parts of south-east Queensland are also experiencing some of the most spectacular population growth in the country, further analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data has shown.
Caloundra West on the Sunshine Coast saw a population increase of 9.8 per cent by 2023, largely due to 1,407 new residents from elsewhere in Australia.
Miami on the Gold Coast saw a population increase of 4.7 per cent, with 116 new residents coming from Australia and 201 from overseas.
This happened when 38,425 people left Sydney for other parts of Australia as high foreign immigration pushed up house prices.
The move to regional areas is becoming more intense as the country faces a housing crisis, with construction companies now accounting for a quarter of insolvencies.
Dr Matthews said construction companies that survived higher material costs would probably not be able to grow to meet increased demand for new homes as the population grew.
South-east Queensland is a hotspot for those fleeing a capital city as young people again leave Sydney for good, as they did during the pandemic (pictured are houses in Ipswich)
“For every construction company that closes, there’s one less on site and therefore there are fewer companies trying to handle the same volume of work and it’s not like the survivors are necessarily able to scale up quickly,” he said.
“It also reduces the supply in the market for consumers, so it’s a very bad situation and it’s the worst thing you can have right now.”
The number of new homes is failing to keep pace with record immigration.
In the year to March, 171,667 new homes were built as 487,940 migrants moved to Australia.
This left a shortfall of 58,772 based on Australian households which have an average of 2.5 people.
“For any resource where there is significantly more demand than supply, the price goes up – it’s a principle of economics,” Dr Matthews said.
“The trajectory of the immigration system, both now and in recent years, has certainly exacerbated the problem; it certainly adds much more pressure to a system that is already under severe strain.”