Surprise NSW towns that doubled in value
One important factor caused these areas to double in value in just five years, defying economists expectations.
One important factor caused these towns to double in value in the “most disruptive” five-year period of living Australian’s lifetime.
Most economist’s expected a global pandemic and rapid interest rate hikes to dampen the Aussie property market over the last five years.
Yet a new report by Propertyology revealed there were 29 towns across Australia that doubled in value, with Snowy Monaro and Broken Hill the highest performing towns in NSW with values now twice as much as they were in January 2020.
Propertyology head of research Simon Pressley called it the “single most interesting five year period in every living Australian’s lifetime.”
“None of us have lived through a global pandemic and that’s what this five year period started with,” he said. “Many economists said as borders closed, you can’t have property growth without population growth, but we had two and a half years of no population growth, proving property price growth is not about population growth.”
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Meanwhile, the fastest increase in interest rates in history also followed, where the cash rate grew from 0.10 per cent in April 2022 to 4.35 per cent by November 2023.
“The things people thought were important and were going to impact (the housing market) actually weren’t overseas migration and interest rates,” Mr Pressley said.
The Riverina region, Albury, Wagga Wagga and Griffith were other areas in NSW that also increased by around 70-80 per cent, which Mr Pressley put each of these areas’ success down to their individual economic growth.
“Each town has their own local economy, if that local economy has a period of time when its performing poorly, we may be directly affected by losing our jobs or lots of people in our direct circle of influence will … that has an adverse effect on household confidence and household incomes and less people buy property if they don’t have those two things,” he said.
McGrath Jindabyne principal Shannon Ferguson said the city mass exodus and Snowy 2.0, he largest committed renewable energy project in Australia, has driven huge growth particular in the two major towns of Jindabyne and Cooma.
“We’ve had significant investor interest in Cooma due to the demands of the contractors in the for the Snowy 2.0 project,” he said. “It really has been major for the Cooma area it has bought hundreds of people to the area for work, and they’re spending money on property and in every shop, the restaurants and cafes are full.”
Jindabyne also continues to be popular due to its lifestyle factor with the mountains and the lake and when there is a successful snow season, Mr Ferguson added.
He said there were many people who had been amazed by growth in equity they’d experienced.
“One in particular, in a smaller township Berrydale, they paid $240,000 for the house and land, we sold the spare block of land for $260,000, then sold the house at around the same time for $660,000,” Mr Ferguson said.
Mr Pressley added that the “five years of evidence in this report shows that individual towns and cities that have a strong local economy, is what creates confidence in the community and that’s going to cause a strong property market.”
PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan suggested these regions benefited greatly from lifestyle changes that were conjured from the pandemic.
“We were expecting that with the widespread job loss that would have a greater economic impact on the housing market, but as the government response was so rapid and very strong that didn’t happen and there was actually an economic boom,” he said.
Demand, lack of housing supply and continued lifestyle shift were the combined impacts that ensure the housing market continued to rise, according to Mr Ryan.
“It has been the most disruptive five years in the property market Australia has ever seen, if you bought in or before the pandemic that fits your needs, at the end of the tumultuous five years most people feel like that they’re in a good place now, even with the big ups and downs, making a good solid decision does turn out alright for most people in the end.”
Originally published as Surprise NSW towns that doubled in value