Several real estate agents in Victoria said that during the epidemic, Melburnians became more and more interested in buying property in the countryside. Real estate analysis company CoreLogic recently commissioned a report on rural immigration during the new crown. The report found that during the epidemic, housing prices in township centers across Australia were more stable than the state capital market.
The data compares housing price changes in Queensland’s Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, NSW’s Illawarra and Newcastle, Victoria’s Geelong and Ballarat and state capital cities. During the epidemic, all township markets also experienced a downturn at the beginning, but they rebounded faster than the state capital. Illawarra and Ballarat even increased by nearly 2% year-on-year.
CoreLogic Australia research director Eliza Owen said that it is too early to judge whether the relative stability of the township housing market during the epidemic is part of a larger trend. In the long run, the new crown epidemic has normalized remote work, and people may be more vigilant about high-density urban areas. So in the long run, I think the township market will benefit from it.
