Simply keeping a roof over their heads has become an extreme challenge for families living across regional NSW following some of the sharpest rises in rents and home prices on record.
PropTrack data revealed housing costs in regional areas have soared by as much as 86 per cent since the pandemic – a rate roughly seven times faster than national wage increases over the same period.
PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said long-time regional residents were often being shouldered out of both the rental and buying market by tree-changers from capital cities.
A recent influx of investors wanting higher rental returns was putting additional pressure on house prices, Mr Ryan said.
“More people have moved from capital cities, partly for affordability and partly for lifestyle,” he said. “Broadly speaking, when prices go up that pushes more people into the rental market and pushes up rents. If rents go up, investors are encouraged to buy housing.”
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Regional NSW has experienced some of the sharpest rises in rents and home prices on record.
Recent rent and home price rises could be displacing some communities with long-established roots in their local communities, Mr Ryan said.
“Seeing prices rise really rapidly puts a lot of pressure on local communities with people struggling to stay where they grew up,” he said.
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Albury experienced one of the biggest increases in regional price growth since the pandemic, with an uplift of 74 per cent in house prices and 47 per cent in unit prices. House prices have stayed strong jumping 11 per cent in the last 12 months, according to PropTrack.
Ray White real estate agent Andrea Lever said competition was highest on properties under $650,000 with a lot of those being out-of-town investors.
“I’ve never seen so many buyers’ agents working with clients for rental yield,” she said.
Rental prices spiked over 40 per cent for both units and houses since the pandemic.
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The Albury region had experienced a lot of investors according to local real estate agent Andrea Lever.
“Especially during the pandemic there was a lot of frustration because locals kept missing out on rentals, so there are some people that weren’t very welcoming to new people coming into the area.”
She said the competition has calmed down now. “We still have people moving here but they’re not coming in droves like it was,” Ms Lever said.
The Snowy Mountains region experienced the biggest increase of 86 per cent in prices since the pandemic.
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Ben Clancy from Jindabyne Real Estate said it was a sizeable shift. “Prices have eased back now, but they are still quite high compared to prior to the pandemic,” he said.
“Largely what we are seeing at the moment is lifestyle investors, because what we have to offer here is the lake and the mountains, it’s people who are buying here because they love mountain biking, water sports or skiing which you don’t have in a lot of other regional markets,” he said.
Buyers were also interested due to the proximity to Sydney and Canberra.
Jyndabyne in the Snowy Mountains region had a lot of “lifestyle investors” according to local agent Ben Clancy.
“There’s a brand new preschool that people are on waiting lists for to get their kids into, that’s always an indication that a region is growing,” he said.
“We are still seeing a massive increase in young professionals looking to live and work remotely here.”
Rental prices had eased, giving local people a chance to stay in the region, Mr Clancy said.
However young first home buyers were struggling to get into the market, according to Mr Clancy and therefore being pushed into smaller regional towns in the vicinity.
“For those little centres it’s good though because it gives them injection of young new residents.”
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