General News
28 March, 2025
Lack of rentals stem moving flow
Central Goldfields Shire left out of regional hotspots, report finds.
New regional hotspots emerge as more people make the choice to live regionally, although the Central Goldfields Shire doesn’t make the cut, report finds.
The latest Regional Movers Index (RMI) report, released quarterly, found fewer city dwellers made the regional move marking the steepest fall in the index since June 2022.
For the December 2024 quarter migration from capital cities to regional areas fell by 11 percent over the three month period. Internal migration also fell by 11.7 percent and lower across all categories.
However, people moving from capital cities to regional areas remains 8.3 percent higher than the pre-COVID average and 3 percent high than last year.
Regional Australia Institute CEO Liz Ritchie said there were still new mover hotspots which showed increasing populations into Australia’s regions is nation wide.
“Regional Australia is the new frontier, and people are enthusiastic about the career opportunities and lifestyle benefits it offers. The RMI’s net migration index, which measures net population flows into regional Australia, is now sitting nearly 51 percent above the pre-COVID average,” she said.
However, the Central Goldfields Shire is nowhere to be found across the report.
The local government area did not meet the requirements to be included meaning:
There were less than 50 people moving to the shire when also considering those who left.
Or less than 10 people from capitals or other regional areas moved to the shire in the base period.
However, manager and co-director of First National Real Estate Maryborough Craig Bell said they’ve been busy since Christmas with interest shown locally, regionally, and from the big cities.
For example, Mr Bell recalls a house priced around $385,000 saw six parties at the open house with half being locals.
Instead, he finds the challenge people have moving to the Central Goldfields Shire is rental availability.
“The rental market’s very tight and investors aren’t buying at the moment because of the legislation from … State Government,” he said.
“We’ve seen some landlords moving out of the market but not landlords moving into the market.”
When a rental is listed, Mr Bell and his team are seeing 10 to 30 applications from people within and outside the shire.
“We get numerous excellent quality tenants and we can’t service them,” he said.
“The math doesn’t work, you can’t put 20 people into the one house.”
Despite this obstacle, Mr Bell views Maryborough as an “un-discovered gem”. From proximity to other regional centres, to the affordability, and activities such as sporting clubs he sees lots of reasons to move to the town.
“The locals don’t see it, we don’t appreciate what we’ve actually got. It’s a really great little town,” he said.