Leading growth markets popping up in unexpected places: Terry Ryder
The leading growth markets in Australia are now popping up in unexpected places.
Regional centres like Launceston and Townsville (above), as well as the affordable outer-ring precincts of our capital cities, dominate Hotspotting’s new National Top 10 list for municipalities with the highest number of growth suburbs.
This partly reflects the decrease in the number of rising markets in Sydney and Melbourne, with both the big cities still performing solidly but well past their peaks in terms of sales volumes. The attention is now shifting to other cities.
In the new Spring edition of The Price Predictor Index, the Moreton Bay Region in Brisbane’s north is the No.1 LGA in Australia for growth markets, having overtaken the Sunshine Coast.
Moreton Bay LGA has 14 suburbs with upwardly-mobile markets, with buyers attracted by affordable prices, infrastructure and jobs nodes. Growth areas include Caboolture, Burpengary, Arana Hills, Bongaree, Deception Bay, Bray Park, Woorim and Warner.
Morayfield is a key market, with sales around 170 per quarter, compared to 120-130 two years ago.
The Sunshine Coast LGA continues to feature strongly. It has 12 growth suburbs, while the neighbouring Noosa LGA has four. Growth stars include Coolum Beach where quarterly sales are up from around 70 to above 100. Caloundra and nearby Golden Beach are also thriving.
The Adelaide market gets very little national attention but it’s showing considerable resilience and there is growth potential in specific precincts. The Marion LGA in Adelaide’s south-west is the leading market in the South Australia capital, having lifted the number of growth suburbs in each of the past three quarterly surveys.
The Marion LGA, a middle-market area of Adelaide, now has nine rising suburbs, including Oaklands Park (median house price $470,000) which has lifted sales from 18 to 24 to 29 to 30 to 37 to 41 in the past six quarters. Other growth suburbs include Sheidow Park, Clovelly Park, Dover Gardens, Edwardstown and Glengowrie.
The Hobart market has captured national attention as homes sell quickly, rents rise at rates above the national average and price growth challenges the major cities. Within the Hobart metro area, the Clarence LGA is the market leader, although growth suburbs are spread across the city.
Clarence, on the opposite side of the Derwent from the CBD, includes growth suburbs such as Geilston Bay, Bellerive, Lindisfarne, Rokeby, Risdon Vale and Warrane.
Launceston markets continue to grow in strength, but tend to be overlooked because of growing national focus on results in Hobart. Tasmania’s No.2 city has eight suburbs with growth markets, while the nearby West Tamar LGA has three. Affordable Invermay (median house price $230,000) typifies the growth in this region. Its sales levels have grown from 19 to 22 to 24 to 29 to 34 to 37 in the past six quarters, while sales in South Launceston have risen from 20 to 29 to 34 to 47 to 51.
Townsville in North Queensland is one of the nation’s comeback markets. It is showing increasing signs of recovery from years in which the usually-strong local economy struggled, thanks to the downturn in the resources sector and the closure of the city’s nickel refinery.
The growing evidence of a revival is likely to gather pace as major events (such as the location of the headquarters for the $20 billion Adani mining project) start to take shape. On the back of improving economic prospects, Townsville now has six suburbs with rising markets.
Perth too is mounting a comeback after four years in a slump and regions in the north of the metro area are leading the fightback. The Wanneroo LGA is featuring strongly; it has six suburbs with growing sales activity - remarkable when you consider that the entire Perth metro area had zero growth suburbs only nine months ago.
The growth markets include Alkimos, Carramar, Clarkson and Hocking. The Wanneroo LGA is the fast-growing municipality in WA and includes several new growth suburbs. As is often the case in such areas, vacancies are high in some postcodes but this will change as demand continues to grow.
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
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