The 6 million question: What will happen to Qld housing as population booms?

South-east Queensland could expand into other regions as an influx of NSW and Victoria residents pushes the state population to 6 million as early as 2027.

The population prediction by Queensland Treasury would force people out of the housing market and demand for housing would only grow, the Real Estate Institute of Queensland fears.

Interstate migration would exacerbate the problem, with federal budget figures showing about 41,000 people were expected to move to Queensland this financial year, up from about 22,000 in the forecast a year ago.

About 30,000 people were predicted to leave other states and move to Queensland next year, while NSW and Victoria were forecast to lose thousands of residents.

NSW would lose about 40,000 people, while more than 17,000 people would leave Victoria.

University of Queensland human geography lecturer Elin Charles-Edwards said while Australia’s migration system had been relatively stable, a key change was Victoria’s reversal.

“There’s a sort of reciprocal migration system – where one place is losing, it’s usually to Queensland’s net benefit,” she said.

“Queensland is gaining but also people are staying put, so we’re not losing as many people as we had in the past.

“The last time we had migration that high was probably going back to the 2000s, where we had a period of really rapid population growth. It’s mostly concentrated in the south-east corner of the state.

‘Where one place is losing, it’s usually to Queensland’s net benefit.’

Elin Charles-Edwards, UQ

“There’s going to be the obvious population pressures, the bit that has been missing, however, has been the international migration flows which are increasingly important for Queensland, and they haven’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels.”

International students were trickling back to Queensland and the arrival of seasonal workers remained low, creating labour shortages.

But Ms Charles-Edwards said the full reopening of those streams would spark a period of significant population growth for the state.

However, plenty of unknowns would remain in the housing market, she said.

“Perhaps we’ll see a bit more of pushing up in places like Wide Bay and Burnett as people are pushed out of the housing market in places like the Sunshine Coast.

“I think Cairns would be the other place which would be experiencing some shifts that will be tied to the international borders.

“Places like Cairns benefit once the international borders open again because they’ve always attracted that transient workforce.”

REIQ chief executive Antonia Mercorella said while the boom was positive for Queensland, the influx was creating enormous demand in the housing market.

REIQ chief executive Antonia Mercorella.Credit: Glenn Hunt - Fairfax Media

She said the key challenge for the government would be ensuring housing and infrastructure kept up with the population.

“For the last two years we’ve had an incredibly tight rental market, and we’ve been watching prices grow and that’s only going to continue to get worse as we see more and more people from interstate moving here,” she said.

“The demand has continued to accelerate and there’s no real signs that it is slowing down.”

Ms Mercorella said the rental market could tighten further and people were offering more for properties in a bid to secure a home.

“There’s even an argument that they’ll get higher, so, because we’ve had the floods up here, there will be tenants and owner occupiers equally who are displaced and that will probably add further strain to the market.”

Ms Mercorella said there would be a wave of new international migration as well.

“More of those expats will probably come home, as well as new arrivals from other parts of the world, and it’s likely Queensland will be the beneficiary of that,” she said.

“We’ve seen quite a big shift to regional communities.”

Ellice Serrano and her family recently moved from Sydney’s Northern Beaches to Maleny in the Sunshine Coast hinterland after her husband developed chronic fatigue and ended up in hospital for three weeks.

“I ended up picking him up from the hospital the day before I went into labour with our third child,” Ms Serrano said.

“We actually bought a house in Maleny about six months ago, and it cost nearly a million, which for a six-bedroom house is just awesome compared to Sydney.

Ellice Serrano and husband Marcos moved with their three children, Chloe, Jimmy and Sophie from Sydney’s Northern Beaches to Maleny in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

“We wanted to get a foot in the door before the housing market went up and up.”

The decision was based on providing a nice environment for their three children, aged 3, 6, and 8, Ms Serrano said, in addition to lifestyle, affordability and health.

“In Sydney, they come home from kindy and say ‘such-and-such went to Fiji in the school holidays’ and ‘such-and-such went to Hawaii’.

“People are really living at the limits of what they’re earning. There is a lot of competition and keeping up with the Joneses.”