Immigration’s return to put pressure on property market

Real Estate

Paul Bugeja

Guest Columnist

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Michael Samson believes that trying to “crystal ball” the real estate market for the last two years has been difficult. Image: LJ Hooker

Now that Australia’s borders are effectively fully reopened, two years of close-to-zero immigration has come to an end, potentially leading to flow-on effects for both the unemployment rate and housing market.

Looking over recent immigration figures, Pete Wargent, co-founder of Australia’s first national marketplace for buyer’s agents, BuyersBuyers, found net overseas migration was negative through much of the pandemic.

“This meant that …the overall population growth rate in Australia dropped to 0.3 per cent, well below the average population growth of 1.7 per cent Australia saw over much of the past 15 years, “ said Wargent.

While he doesn’t necessarily expect immigration to fully bounce back, he noted that, “Even a return to 1½ per cent population growth equates to an increase of nearly 400,000 per annum.”

A key driver for a return to more immigration is the lowest unemployment rate Australia has seen in decades, which is causing skills shortages across many sectors, with Wargent having seen anecdotal evidence to support this, “With many shops advertising urgently for new applicants to fill vacant roles, while surveys of job vacancies continue to report exceptionally high rates of vacancy.”

Return of overseas backpackers

This is something Shire residents and businesses will relate to. As the tourism market rebounded through much of 2021, some businesses were forced to change or reduce their opening hours, operating on skeleton staff as they struggled to fill vacancies virtually impossible to fill.

A gradual increase in immigration will go some way to easing these staffing pressures in the Shire, particularly as a younger cohort return to our shores on work/travel visas.

Pointing to recent Federal Budget papers predicting the steady return to net overseas migration, Doron Peleg, BuyersBuyers CEO, contends this might occur due to a recalibration of the skilled migrant visa scheme, and by offering residency to temporary visa holders and more pathways to residency for international students.

Wargent believes that the natural correlation to a return to normal immigration levels and “up to a million new people every three years requires a great deal of investment in housing.”

'Crystal ball'

Local LJ Hooker managing director Michael Samson believes that trying to “crystal ball” the real estate market and trends pre-COVID and for the last two years has been difficult.

“Initially, all the experts predicted a property slump,” Samson offers, while pointing out that the opposite was the case, with record prices recorded locally.

Asked how a return to normal immigration levels would play into this, Samson said,” My current thoughts are that we may be back to a more ‘normal’ sort of market.”

But he isn’t going to ‘crystal ball’ too much about how much immigration will increase and th flow-on effect to property prices.

“Australia as a whole could expect an immigration boom over the next few years. We will have to wait and see and get an understanding how the new government will handle immigration laws.”


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