Tens of thousands of millennial parents are fleeing Sydney and flocking to southeast Queensland during the country’s housing crisis.
The Sunshine State is among Australia’s best-performing property markets, with house prices continuing to rise by double-digit annual figures despite interest rates remaining high.
Higher-than-expected levels of overseas migration have also led to a large exodus from Sydney, by far Australia’s most expensive property market, with the median house price approaching $1.5 million.
The number of people fleeing Sydney is now almost identical to the number building up in Brisbane and the Gold Coast – and other parts of the Sunshine State – as millennials raising children seek a better lifestyle for their money.
Mother-of-two Arianne Endrizzi and her husband Chris, both 36, swapped a two-bedroom unit in Hornsby in Sydney’s north four years ago for a five-bedroom house with a pool, set on a third of an acre in Palm Cove, near Cairns in the tropical far north of Queensland.
“We haven’t looked back, we love the lifestyle, we love the sun, we love the outdoors,” Ms Enrizzi told Daily Mail Australia.
The $1.1 million they spent on a tropical dream home near the water would hardly buy a typical home in western Sydney, let alone a large acreage.
“More bang for your buck in terms of lifestyle and affordability,” he said.
Tens of thousands of Australians are fleeing Sydney and flocking to southeast Queensland during a housing crisis (pictured, schoolchildren in Surfers Paradise)
Arianne Endrizzi (right) and her husband Chris Endrizzi (centre) swapped a Hornsby unit in Sydney’s north four years ago for a five-bedroom house with a pool located on a third of an acre in Palm Cove, near Cairns, in the Far North Queensland (pictured with Arianne’s mother Susan Putnam, left, and Arianne’s son Chase)
“That same block in Sydney would be completely out of reach.”
Working parents enjoy living in a beachside market town that’s just a short drive from Port Douglas or Cairns.
“With Palm Cove, sunny beaches and warm weather, the pace of life is slower, which is in contrast to Sydney,” he said.
“It also coincided with our family changes because I became a mother of two young children, so it provided an idyllic environment to raise a family – a strong sense of community and beautiful natural surroundings.”
Mrs Endrizzi is a model, while her husband is a machine operator in the resources industry and regularly flies to the Northern Territory for work.
They also make a living from three investment properties in south-east Queensland.
Since then, their baby boomer mother, Susan Putnam, 70, moved with them to the sprawling property, when she became grandmother to Chase, two, and Aurora, one, after sharing previously an apartment with his daughter.
Married mother Anne Crarey, 43, moved to the Gold Coast with her seven-year-old son in 2021 from Wantirna, in Melbourne’s east, to escape Victoria’s cold winters, after noticing rising prices in the South East Queensland property market.
The $1.1 million they spent on a dream tropical home near the water would hardly buy a typical home in western Sydney, let alone a large area (pictured, Arianne and Chris Endrizzi with Nero, their mastiff Italian 11 years old).
‘My husband’s whole family lived on the Gold Coast; “we had every intention of moving to the Gold Coast when my son was going to Prep, however we ended up moving 18 months early due to house prices going up every month, so I decided to take the plunge rather than wait,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I feel like the move has allowed me to relax a little more.
“I can have a little more work-life balance and be more available to my son because I don’t have to be stuck in hour-and-a-half traffic one way to work.”
She was able to move north as executive general manager of real estate services at Little Real Estate, which has offices in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
“I wanted my son to be able to play outside in the winter and not have to worry about wrapping himself in layers and layers of clothing,” Mrs. Crarey said.
During the last financial year, 30,865 residents fled New South Wales for another state on a net basis, while 29,910 moved to Queensland, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday revealed.
Western Australia was the only other state to experience a large increase in net interstate migration with 9,742 people.
Perth, the capital of the resource-rich state, also has Australia’s tightest rental vacancy rate of 0.6 per cent, which is almost half Brisbane’s 1.1 per cent level and the national average. 1.4 percent, new data from SQM Research showed.
Anne Crarey, a 43-year-old married mother of a seven-year-old son, moved to the Gold Coast in 2021 from Melbourne to escape Victoria’s cold winters, after noticing a rise in prices in the south-east Queensland property market.
WA also had the strongest population growth rate in Australia, at 2.8 per cent, well above the national average of 2.1 per cent.
Victoria, Australia’s worst-performing property market, actually saw a net increase of 664 new residents interstate and Melbourne homes and units are now more affordable than those in Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth.
Crarey predicted rate cuts next year would revive Melbourne’s sluggish property market and overcome the effects of the state government’s investor land tax, as the Victorian capital sees a large influx of foreign migration, including international students.
“That’s where we’re going to start to see some movement in Melbourne, that’s when I feel investment will come back to Melbourne,” he said.
‘I don’t think things will change too much in Queensland; Sydney, we just have to look and see.
Interestingly, Victoria’s population growth rate of 2.4 per cent was stronger than Queensland’s 2.3 per cent level.
New South Wales had a below-average growth rate of 1.7 per cent, due to a large interstate exodus but a large foreign influx.
In most of Australia, More residents left for another part of Australia than moved there.
South Australia had a net outflow of 1,569 people, despite Adelaide house prices still recording double-digit annual growth, resulting in a weaker population growth pace of 1.4 per cent.
Tasmania, an underperforming property market, had an exodus of 2,557 people and Australia’s weakest population growth of 0.3 per cent.
The Northern Territory, Australia’s cheapest housing market to buy a home, saw 3,775 people leave, leading to a weak population increase of 0.8 per cent.
This occurred as 1,550 residents fled the Australian Capital Territory, which had a below-average population growth rate of 1.7 per cent.
Australia’s population grew 2.1 per cent in the year to June with 445,600 foreign migrants arriving, a level more than four times the net birth rate of 106,400.
Admission was also 50,600 higher than the May budget forecast of 395,000 for 2023-24.
Sydney received the highest proportion of permanent and long-term foreign arrivals, with 142,473 moving to New South Wales, which received almost a third of the national intake.
Melbourne also received a large influx of new immigrants, with 142,473 foreigners moving to Victoria, ahead of Queensland’s 74,932, South Australia’s 23,273, Western Australia’s 58,082, Tasmania’s 3,820, South Australia’s 3,643. North and the ACT’s 6,523.