Great Northern Migration Underway As Aussies Move North!

A great northern migration is underway as aussies move north and families flee the housing affordability crisis to start anew in sunny Queensland.

It's a narrative being pushed with gusto by the state government, and it has seen more than 20,000 people move to the state's booming south-east region last year.

KPMG economist Brendan Rynne believes the numbers are on their side.

"At the moment what we're seeing in Queensland is that house prices are at a cyclical low, so they're approaching the bottom values in that range," he said.

Mr Rynne said property prices in Brisbane were currently about 40 percent of Sydney's, and 70 percent of Melbourne's.

Added to this is the largest first homebuyers' grant in the nation, at $20,000.

Couple this with the fact that . . .

Earlier this year Australia brought up an economic record, logging its 103rd quarter without experiencing a technical recession, the longest stretch of uninterrupted growth for a developed nation ever seen.

It created plenty of headlines at the time, deemed by many to be an example of good economic management, especially among politicians. Have a look at this chart showing population growth since Australia’s last recession in mid-1991.

In 2016 alone, population grew by 373,000, or 1.55%, significantly higher than comparable growth rates seen in other developed nations such as Japan, the US, UK and Western Europe.

Over the same period, real GDP in Australia grew by just 1.7%, underlining the importance that population increase has played in boosting economic economic growth, not only in 2016, but in the years since the global financial crisis.

Then, when we see that . . .

The ‘real’ jobs numbers are finally moving again

This week’s ABS jobs data are very significant. For the first time in 18 months it shows a monthly and annual rise in hours worked that is clearly ahead of population growth – 0.4 and 2.4 per cent respectively.

If that is more than statistical noise – and May’s annualised figure of 1.5 per cent suggests it is – then it’s a good sign for the economy.

In the most reliable ‘trend’ terms, the ABS says 30,000 full-time jobs were added, and 9,600 part-time jobs were lost in June.

These are great conditions to safely invest, knowing that there is solid population and employment growth to keep our property market strong!

Have a great weekend and catch you next week!

Troy Gunasekera | National Manager