Tom Gannon
As the masses flock from metropolitan Melbourne to regional Victoria in search of a lifestyle change, the housing market has never been hotter, and while it’s not all bad news, it isn’t all good news either.
The housing market within regional Victoria has experienced a recent period of intense growth as more people from metropolitan areas appear to be ditching the standard nine-to-five work week and daily commute, opting to work from home, giving people greater flexibility with where they live.
The Latrobe Valley has been on the receiving end of this influx with a median house price increase of 17.5 per cent over the last 12 months, up from $276,000 in March 2020 to $325,000 in March 2021.
Traralgon, the Valley’s most populated town, has seen significant growth with the median house price up from $325,000 in March 2020 to $365,000 in March 2021, a 12.3 per cent increase.
Traralgon also experienced an 18.3 per cent increase in real estate transactions between March 2020 and March 2021 as well as an average of 19 less days on the market.
Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) president Leah Calnan said although the influx will be beneficial to the area, people must also focus on the unintended consequences of such a change.
“All of a sudden you’ve got talent moving to regional Victoria and the more talent we bring in, the better the community becomes. It’s not just about employment but it increases the talent pool for things like the local football and netball club,” she said.
“Whilst it’s great on one level, there are all these unintended consequences, it does put that adverse effect on services like supermarkets, dentists, doctors and all those services that still need to facilitate the influx in that community.”
Ms Calnan said that with the amount of people moving to regional areas with easy access to Melbourne, existing renters in these areas will be forced to move further out.
“One of the unintended consequences when you’ve got such an increase and demand in a regional area is that the cohort of traditional renters are really going to struggle moving forwards,” she said.
“If you look at the two to three hour ring around Melbourne, they’ve had that giant influx from metro people and then that next layer has gone further up to places like Mildura, Swan Hill because you’re not going to have somebody from metro go straight to Mildura, it’s not what they are looking for.”
However Ms Calnan believes the influx can have benefits with younger people deciding to continue living in regional areas when they would have previously looked at moving to metropolitan Melbourne.
“Often you see people in regional towns get to a certain age and then they leave and look for opportunities in the big city and you lose that talent, so now if we can have those opportunities in a regional area that creates the talent here so we don’t lose it, I think that’s a real bonus for regional towns,” she said.
According to Ms Calnan there are no indications that the housing boom will slow down any time soon with regional growth expected to be greater than metropolitan areas in 2021.
“Everything is suggesting that whilst we need to be able to manage it, the hotness of the market isn’t stopping yet,” she said.
“We saw some big percentage increases for the March quarter, I think we’ll see those trend upwards again for the June quarter and I do believe we will see that regional will have a greater growth than metro for 2021.”
