Big smoke exodus drives bush rent crisis

An influx of people fleeing the big smoke is driving vacancy rates towards rock bottom across the regions.

Andrew Haskell and Angela Wellman with Ayla Haskell, four months, Calum Price, 11, and Tate Price, 8, at their Margaret River campsite. Picture: Colin Murty

Regional towns across the country face an unprecedented rental crisis as an influx of people fleeing the big smokes drives vacancy rates towards rock bottom and ­locals into cars and campsites.

After the majority of the population began working from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many took the opportunity to relocate away from CBDs, moving en masse to sea-change and tree-change locations.

Data from real estate analyst firm SQM Research highlights vacancy rates across swaths of regional Australia are below 0.5 per cent, with holiday spots particularly popular for those seeking an escape from the concrete jungle.

Three hours’ south of Perth, Margaret River is at breaking point — the sleepy, surfer town, already popular among young families, is in a housing crisis, with soaring demand for rentals since April leaving few homes available.

For Angela Wellman, the crisis is tangible: there’s nowhere for her family of six to live. In the middle of the bush amid sweltering heat, they’ve pitched a tent, nervously hoping for something to appear. “It is quite stressful, because it’s not sustainable,” she said. “I just see more and more people needing housing and not many houses coming up. There’s not much movement of houses at the moment in Margaret River. With rentals, everyone’s a little too scared now to want to move.”

With three of her children enrolled at the local primary and high school, and her partner Andrew working locally, Ms Wellman said she would tough it out until it got too cold to continue camping. However, with a four-month-old baby, the daily struggles of “going back to basics” were starting to take a toll.

The situation is likely to deteriorate further for those struggling to stay afloat.

With the WA government’s eviction moratorium to expire on March 28, Kelly Donaldson, director of First Nat­ional Real Estate in Margaret River, said rental prices, artificially depressed by the eviction ban, were guaranteed to spike once it elapsed.

“Some (residents) are living in campgrounds, some are living in caravans, some are moving to Busselton. They’re just trying to find a roof over their head. Some are not moving out of the house even though they’re meant to; they’re just staying put. It’s creating a lot of other issues,” he said.

The dire situation isn’t confined to the west coast. Elders franchise owner Dave Gray said he was fielding calls daily from residents looking for rentals or properties along the NSW mid-north coast on behalf of friends and family “It’s a perfect storm because you’ve got people moving here, or people that lived here once before, grew up here, moving back, or people that bought an investment property thinking they’re going to retire one day — COVID sped that up,” he said.

Whether this demographic shift becomes a long-term change is the “multi-million-dollar question”, says University of Queensland finance professor Shaun Bond. He said capital cities were likely to experience a resurgence once the pandemic ended, migration began anew and companies asked employees to return to the office.

“For a lot of businesses, we also realise the benefits from being around colleagues. The extra productivity that seems to generate when you bring people together (is) a pretty powerful economic force,” he said.

As federal construction incentives and low interest rates fuel developments nationwide, increasing housing supply in areas grappling with demand pressures, the long-term result could be a regional boom “if we see entrepreneurs moving to these areas, starting businesses (that) end up growing and hiring more people,” Professor Bond said.