It’s an area best known around Australia for its whale-watching, but now Hervey Bay in southern Queensland is creating another splash as the city with the highest regional property price rise in the country.

Wondunna, a suburb of Hervey Bay, which is 240 kilometres north of Brisbane and 120 kilometres south of Bundaberg, had the highest house price jump of 2019 at 26 per cent to a new median of $463,250. And that’s been driven by people migrating from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and other regional areas, say locals.