This compares with an average 5.1 per cent across the Sydney sub-markets, while the Newcastle-Lake Macquarie region, the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven region, dwelling values grew at 4.5 per cent. The rest of NSW had an average of just 2.1 per cent.
“You’d expect sub-markets in Sydney and Melbourne to get that kind of return … What this data shows is you don’t necessarily need to have bought into a capital city to get that kind of return,” said CoreLogic head of Australian research Eliza Owen.
“These particular markets, like Geelong, the Gold Coast, are in a league of their own. They have much higher returns then other regional parts of these states and even have higher returns then some of the capital city markets.”
In Victoria, Geelong has a 10-year annualised growth rate of 4.1 per cent, above Melbourne’s average of 3.7 per cent and well above the rest of regional Victoria which sat at 2.7 per cent.
Geelong has benefited as people have been priced out of Melbourne. Pat Scala
Ms Owen said markets such as Geelong, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie benefited from “spillover demand”.
“Part of the growth in this region, it’s people being priced out of Sydney similarly in Melbourne they might look to Geelong, Newcastle, Illawarra, as an alternative,” she said.
“Those trends have been exacerbated by COVID-19 where remote work was normalised and permitted in company culture and that’s where we’ve seen a continued growth of these regions over 2020.”
Across Queensland, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast also posted long-term growth rates above greater Brisbane of 2.4 per cent versus 1.5 per cent.
Ms Owen said the figures demonstrated that the move to regional Australia had been happening for a long time and had been “exacerbated” by COVID-19, and would continue into the future.
“Property prices are falling in inner Melbourne, for example, and that may attract people back to the city … but overall, I believe this is a trend that will continue and if anything coming out of COVID, as the economy recovers, that might increase the mobility of Australians,” she said.
“They might feel more financially confident to purchase a property in a different area, uproot their lifestyle. This is a trend that will continue with the economic recovery post COVID.”