Shortage Looms As Migration Picks Up

Migration is what will have the biggest impact on the Australian property market in the next few years, according to property investment expert James Fitzgerald.
He says Australia will welcome more than 200,000 people a year over the next few years and this will drive demand for housing with about 70,000 to 100,000 houses needed every year to accommodate the new migrants.
Since the pandemic started, Australia has barely built 70,000 new dwellings.
“Yet we are going to need to build a minimum of that every year just to keep up with the demand over the next two to three years,” Fitzgerald says.
“Adding to that challenge is the 1% vacancy rate across Australia, the lowest since 2006. That lack of supply is the reason rents in most capital cities have increased.”
Fitzgerald says the markets which traditionally benefit the most from overseas migration are Sydney and Melbourne, although there are also flow-on effects for the smaller capital cities like Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
He says in the coming years Brisbane’s market will also benefit from the 2032 Olympic Games as a result of the huge amount of spending on infrastructure in the lead-up.
“That spending on infrastructure is important because it creates jobs, improves amenity and ensures the city is capable of handling population growth,” he says.
Sydney’s median house price doubled between 1998 and 2003 in the lead up to and immediately following the 2000 Olympic Games.