Approvals V Construction
Hotspotting
Two very different headlines have summed up the problems for Australia’s ongoing housing shortage. One of the recent media headlines declared that building approvals were at a two-year high and that things were improving for the nation’s housing shortage. The other described why building approvals are almost irrelevant – it said that project deferrals are occurring at a record rate. The reality of the current crisis is this: it doesn’t matter how many houses and apartments are approved for construction – and it doesn’t matter how many re-zonings state governments push through...
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Webinar Replay: Reflections & Projections - A Deep Dive into Real Estate Trends & Forecasts
Hotspotting
In this insightful webinar, Terry Ryder, founder of Hotspotting, and Tim Graham, Hotspotting’s General Manager, analyze the surprises and trends of 2024 in the Australian property market and share their projections for 2025. With decades of combined experience, they provide investors with actionable advice on navigating the coming year. Key Highlights 2024 in Review Defying Predictions: Despite high interest rates and inflationary pressures, property prices rose by an average of 5.53% nationally in 2024. Perth led with an astonishing 18.7% growth, followed by regional Western Australia,...
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Best Buys Result
Hotspotting
You don’t have to be super rich or invest $1 million to make big capital gains in residential real estate: you just need to follow Hotspotting’s signature report, the National Top 10 Best Buys report. Those who followed the tips in our report of a year ago could have made close to $100,000 in capital gains spending as little as $400,000 – or $180,000 in gains after investing $630,000. In December 2023 we published our National Top Best Buys reports for Summer 2023-34. Our top 10 locations for investors to consider covered a wide range of price points, from less than $300,000 and above $1...
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Listings Rise
Hotspotting
The greatest complaint heard most often in real estate across Australia is that there are plenty of buyers, but a shortage of listings. The number of properties for sale has been well short of the levels needed for a balanced market, particularly in the boom cities of Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. But that is steadily changing. According to SQM Research, total listings of properties for sale nationwide grew 7.6% in November and are now more than 10% higher than a year ago. Perhaps most significantly, there were major rises in November in those three boom cities, with the...
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Media Absurdities
Hotspotting
Things are constantly changing in real estate nationwide but the one factor that never changes is this: we can always rely on news media to distort the facts and deliver a steady flow of misinformation to Australian consumers, all in the interests of attracting readership, with little regard for accuracy, honesty or fairness. The past week or so has been chockful of media nonsense. If you can believe the headlines, the national property boom is over, house prices are plunging, the rental boom is over and the North Queensland city of Townsville is a mining town. One of the constants of my...
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2025 Predictions
Hotspotting
Rumours of the death of ‘the national property boom’ are greatly exaggerated – especially since we didn’t have a national property boom in 2024. Rather, over the past 12 months, we have seen differing market cycles in many locations - as is the usual state of play in real estate throughout Australia. Strong property price growth was recorded in Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane in 2024, but not in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Darwin or Hobart. Similarly, in the regional areas, there were declining and stagnating markets, as well as some where prices were showing good price...
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Regional Investment Boom
Hotspotting
Victoria’s real estate market is witnessing a significant shift as young first-home buyers increasingly seek affordable housing in regional areas. According to recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), first-home buyer loans in Victoria soared to 4,202 in July – the highest number in nearly two years. This surge reflects growing confidence among young buyers and a trend towards exploring housing options beyond Melbourne. Nationally, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Regional Australia Institute report that the flow of people from cities...
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Units Beat Houses
Hotspotting
Hotspotting was among the first to identify and highlight the most significant change in the Australian real estate scene – the emerging trend which we document in the quarterly editions of the report titled The Rise and Rise of Apartments., published in association with Nuestar. This trend has turned upside down the dominant paradigm in real estate, that houses out-perform apartments on capital growth. There is now growing evidence that attached dwellings are mounting a strong challenge to houses. It has long been believed that land content was the big thing in driving...
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Why a Buyer’s Agent Is a Game-Changer for Property Investors | Featuring Chris Graham
Hotspotting
Thinking of buying property on your own? 🏡 In this episode of The Property Playbook, host Terry Ryder is joined by Chris Graham, Senior Property Advisor at Australian Hotspot Advocacy, to explore why engaging a buyer’s agent could be the key to securing your next winning investment. What You'll Learn: What a buyer’s agent does and how they work exclusively for the buyer’s interests. The value of off-market properties and how buyer’s agents can provide access. Why having a professional on your team ensures due diligence and avoids costly mistakes. How to identify a trustworthy...
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Melbourne Market Myths
Hotspotting
Melbourne’s property market remains the great under-achiever of the nation but that may be about to change. A number of key indicators suggest better performance by the Melbourne property market is imminent. One pointer to better times is the latest Property Sentiment survey by API magazine, which recorded a major turnaround in investor attitudes towards the Victorian property market. The survey asked: Which state or territory do you regard as having the best property investment prospects for the next 12 months? Mid-year Melbourne and Victoria attracted only 8.6...
info_outlineThe trend we call the Exodus to Affordable Lifestyle is among the most powerful forces impacting real estate markets across Australia.
It’s a trend that been around for at least the past 10 years, with more and more residents of the biggest cities relocating to smaller cities or regional areas in search of a different and more affordable lifestyle, empowered by technology which allows many people to work remotely.
It was NOT created by the Covid lockdowns. It was under way long before Covid appeared in 2020 and it continues to have considerable momentum now that we are well beyond the pandemic restrictions.
But media continues to perpetuate the fiction that this was a Covid thing – and to express surprise that, now that we no longer have lockdowns and border restrictions, people are not all moving back to the big cities.
The latest quarterly edition of the Regional Movers Index confirms that this trend is as strong as ever – and it has generated more shock/horror/amazement from journalists who think it was all about the Covid lockdowns.
One article in major media expressed surprise that “Australia is not going back to the pre-pandemic way of life”.
And there’s a very good reason for that: this trend has very little to do with the pandemic.
The Regional Movers Index – which is a collaboration between the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) and the Commonwealth Bank - has once again reported that there are far more people relocating to regional areas than making a move in the opposite direction to major cities, with a 27 per cent difference in the June 2024 Quarter.
What the latest figures confirm, according to RAI chief executive Liz Ritchie, is that “the population movement we’re seeing is a sustained trend”.
Ritchie says: “Regional Australia has become the nation’s new frontier.”
The latest data highlighted a number of specific hotspots that are reaping the benefits of Australia’s romance with the regions.
Lake Macquarie, which sits beside Newcastle in NSW, has emerged as one of Australia’s most popular destinations for movers, securing an almost 5 per cent share of net internal migration over the past year.
Neighbouring local government areas on the NSW south coast such as the Bega Valley and Eurobodalla both experienced strong annual and quarterly surges in movement, according to the report.
Large centres within a few hours’ drive of capitals remain popular with many movers, however the regions that experienced the biggest population changes over the past 12 months were generally further afield, including Townsville (Qld), Mid-West Regional (NSW), Strathbogie (Vic), Murray Bridge (SA), Greater Geraldton (WA) and George Town (Tas).
Approximately three-quarters of the city dwellers who made the move to the regions in the past three months found new homes in either regional NSW or Victoria, confirming that Sydney continues to shed the highest number of residents, followed by Melbourne.
But that’s not to say that Queensland’s appeal has waned entirely, with regional Queensland’s share of net city outflows sitting at 19 per cent, even though it was as high as 41 per cent this time last year.
Indeed, the Sunshine Coast has retained its title as the nation’s most popular destination for relocators, accounting for a 14 per cent share of net internal migration. The Gold Coast has slipped down in the rankings, however, with the city experiencing a net outflow of people to other regional areas.
Western Australia also proved attractive for relocators, with Albany, Bunbury, Busselton, Capel and Northam all seeing an inflow of new residents.
The overall picture is that the trend of people moving from Sydney and Melbourne to regional areas continues strongly, with large numbers of big city dwellers still seeking a different and more affordable lifestyle.