Three years of higher interest rates, rising cost-of-living pressures, growing homelessness rates, skyrocketing rents and limited housing supply has created a national housing affordability crisis in Australia. Many are locked out of the housing market in the capital cities – and they have been turning to regional centres in droves.
These people aren’t all after a tree change. They just want a home they can afford with access to the services that they need, within commuting distance of a major city. They want a satellite city.
Investing in satellite cities – regional centres with populations of more than 100,000 – is the first point in a regional housing strategy unveiled at the Housing Industry Association (HIA) Regional Housing Roundtable in Bendigo last month. The HIA’s CEO of industry and policy, Simon Croft, said many people were realising that the regions could offer the lifestyle and jobs they wanted “minus big-city problems”.
According to the HIA’s Housing the Regions report, there are now 8.5 million Australians living in regional Australia. Though satellite cities are still more affordable than their major metropolitan counterparts, house prices are rising, causing a sore point for existing residents. The report argues that more investment in housing supply and infrastructure, including in affordable homes, is needed to keep pace with demand.
“This shift in population highlights the importance of the need for appropriate investment in the regions to bolster services, skills and infrastructure needed to support a growing population,” Croft says.
The large regional cities with the fastest rate of growth in the past 10 years, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, are the Gold Coast-Tweed Heads, Newcastle-Maitland, the Sunshine Coast, Geelong, Ballarat, Albury-Wodonga and Toowoomba.
We asked locals for their review.
Ballarat: ‘Community and opportunity’
Jhenn Bayao moved her family to Ballarat from La Trinidad in the Philippines almost three years ago, in search of “a fresh start in a place that felt welcoming and safe”.
With family already in Ballarat, they felt a sense of connection and support. The regional city, located about 110km west of Melbourne, stood out as a “peaceful regional city with a good balance of community and opportunity”.
“The transition was smoother because we had someone we knew here to help us adjust. It has since become a place where we feel at home,” she says.
Bayao says the family loves the open parks and spaces – especially important for raising their daughter. “The peaceful environment allows her to grow up without the stress and noise of a big city,” she says.
Ballarat had a population of just over 110,000 as of the 2021 census. It is projected to have a population of more than 170,000 by 2041. A patchwork of cleared housing blocks, steadily overtaking areas that used to be farmland, make up the growth corridors earmarked by the regional city.
The Victorian government’s $5.3bn Big Housing Build project to address Victoria’s critical social housing shortage is also under way in one of the estates in western Ballarat. More than 180 new social and affordable homes are slated for construction.
And while Real Estate Institute of Victoria data shows that median house prices in central Ballarat have increased by 83.9% over the past decade, from $342,500 to $630,000, Bayao says housing is still generally more affordable compared with major cities.
Living in one of the growth zones, she still considers the lifestyle to be “slower-paced”. She says the family can’t see itself moving to a larger city.
“The calm environment is much better suited to our family and the life we want to build,” she says.
Newcastle: ‘Beach, park, walks’
For Hannah Turner and her family, Newcastle is probably as big as it’s going to get.
“The dream is to buy land and build a beautiful home to raise our children and leave them something beautiful,” she says.
Turner says they moved to the outskirts of the New South Wales central coast city from Ballarat earlier this year in order to be closer to family. The warmer weather sweetened the deal.
“I love the sunny weather. It has made a massive positive impact on our lives. We go to the beach, park, walks and just explore,” she says. “Spending more time with our family has been a massive benefit to our five-year-old. Having all the kids around constantly has brought her out of her shell.”
Newcastle is forecast to welcome more than 86,000 new residents by 2041. Last year, councillors voted to review the city’s draft social infrastructure strategy, designed to cater for the predicted population of just over 200,000.
The NSW government also announced two reforms to support the population increase, including a proposal for a transport-oriented development of higher-density homes around selected railway stations. The city is under pressure to deliver 11,100 new homes in the next five years – a target the City of Newcastle says it’s “extremely unlikely” to meet.
In April 2023, the vacancy rate in Newcastle dropped to 1.8% and the region experienced a significant decline in affordable rental bonds lodged, leading to loss of affordable housing between 2017 and 2022. At the same time there has been an increase in the proportion of lower income households in rental stress.
Turner says the higher cost of housing surprised her. “In Ballarat, I was paying $410 a week for a beautiful four-bedroom home. Here, you can pay that but you compromise a room or two.”
Sunshine Coast: ‘We didn’t want a big city’
Nadia Wetterberg moved from Melbourne to Mackay in north Queensland in 2021. Sick of the Melbourne weather, it was the first time she had lived anywhere but her hometown.
But at the start of this year, her family decided they had “outgrown” the small town and made another move. The Sunshine Coast was a “midway point” between Melbourne’s climate and Mackay’s extreme heat and humidity. Wetterberg says her family loves the coast and beaches, as well as the easy access to an international airport.
“We travel overseas often and having to take an extra flight between Brisbane and Mackay every time was painful. But we still didn’t want to live in a big city,” the mother-of-three says.
“We also wanted more things to be able to do with the children. We wanted to have more options for activities, and there’s plenty to see, explore and do here on the coast.”
More than half of new arrivals to the Sunshine Coast come from other parts of Queensland. The population grew by more than 79,000 people between 2011 and 2021 and is now more than 340,000 – with a forecast to hit 540,000 by 2046. More than 234,000 new homes are needed to allow for this growth.
Local house prices have soared since the start of the pandemic, increasing by over 60% in five years. Residential vacancy rates range between 1% and 2%. “It is very expensive to buy or rent here at the moment,” says Wetterberg.
The Sunshine Coast Council says it is working to build a “regional economy that is innovative, adaptive, resilient and climate ready”.
Wetterberg says she would never move back to a big city ever again. “If I was ever to move back, it would be because I was desperate to have family support close by. But it would have to be the very last option left for me.”
