Plenty of real estate market watchers quote populations stats when “reading the tea leaves” for our industry. It makes sense that more people means greater housing demand. So some have pointed to slowing overseas migration as a warning sign for property prices. Here’s a handy reminder of the facts:
It takes some time for the ABS to release the data so the latest we have is for the year to Sept 30th 2010. And that showed net overseas migration down 40% on that same quarter a year earlier. That’s a sharp drop. But it also shows that our natural increase in population accounted for almost half of our population growth in the year. Australians stand proud, we’re amongst the best reproducers in the western world! And we’re getting pretty good at living longer too. So easing overseas arrivals won’t stop our growth.
And yes in case you missed it, our population grew 1.6% over that year – a jump of almost 350,000 (or twice the size of Townsville’s population) added to our numbers. Queensland’s resident numbers grew by almost 1,600 per week. So slower growth is still very strong growth.
Demographer Bernard Salt, writing in a recent Australian Newspaper column, remarks on the government’s own forecasts for continued growth. He points out that while the pollies talk about numbers dropping their own Federal budget papers show they’re still expecting net overseas migration to return to 180,000 next year.
If Dick Smith and the other ’small Australia’ proponents have any hope they’ll have to convince Australians to stop having babies. Good luck with that.
Don’t you love statistics?! Brisbane property researcher Michael Matusik has released some ABS data on Australia’s population growth in 2008-2009 and depending on your preferred interpretation the nation’s fastest growing city is Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth!
Brisbane City is the fastest growing municipality with a 21,161 jump in population for the year. (Now 1.05 million happy Brisbanites who all drive the same way as me at 5.30pm on a Friday!)
Melbourne (the big city not the little council area) grew by 93,478, making it the fastest growing capital city by numbers, with greater Brisbane 4th with 52,104 new residents.
Greater Perth can claim the title of fastest capital city by percentage, with a 3.2% jump!
So there it is – clearly Brisbane IS still the fastest growing city in Australia!
Last night, the Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman spoke to Business South Bank members at West End’s Greek Club. Have a listen to his very positive view point on the future of Brisbane and its expected population growth rates. He briefly addresses urban sprawl and the planning process currently underway for developing West End including an update on the City Glider, Hale Street (Go Between) Bridge and future City Cat stops.
Plenty of real estate market watchers quote populations stats when “reading the tea leaves” for our industry. It makes sense that more people means greater housing demand. So some have pointed to slowing overseas migration as a warning sign for property prices. Here’s a handy reminder of the facts:
