'Is a tree change as good as a holiday?': Darren Palmer on the housing trend Australians can't get enough of

Is a tree change as good as a holiday?

On one hand you have big city incomes and proximity to everything that a big city can offer, on the other you have nature, lower median house prices and the freedom to move.

One lifestyle means you’re in many ways hemmed-in, from land size to the memory of being locked in your home and suburb, the other scenario allows for larger lots, larger homes and more access to the great outdoors with comparably fewer restrictions.

Many Australians are looking at these equations and for any number of personal reasons are getting on the tree change bandwagon.

Covid restrictions and work from home culture separated the need to work and the requirement to live in a city – with internal migration data backing up what we already know anecdotally – that regional centres within a short drive to major metropolitan areas have become highly desirable relocation destinations.

• The Block 2022 listings are now live, and updated weekly. See them here.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, capital cities had a net loss of 11,800 people from internal migration in the three months to the end of March 2021, the largest quarterly net loss on record.

Whilst internal movement within Australia is complex, you need only look at property value increases – in some cases upward of 20 per cent in desirable regional areas – to get an indication of where people from the larger cities are setting down roots, and when it’s not by the sea it’s amongst the trees.

On a list of the top 20 regional towns for first home buyers, the town of Woodend near the Macedon Ranges is rated sixth. It’s also just a hop, skip and a jump from the site of this year’s The Block, which promises to deliver everything that a tree changer will desire with the elevated design and development approach we’ve come to expect from the show and its contestants.

Now that the show’s promo has aired, we’ve heard Scott Cam make mention of “tennis courts, wineries and even a lake” and a reliable Block insider has advised that there’s even more shock and awe in store atop this piece of prime Aussie heartland.

Whilst these Block homes are some distance from a first home buyer price point, they do offer the best of a country environment, with less than an hour commute to Melbourne should business demand it, and a short drive to the airport, connecting these homes and those who acquire them, to city slickers in Australia and across the world.

The perfect blend of city amenity included within a home itself rather than the place where it sits, plus the connection to nature and the quiet of a secluded location within proximity of a major metropolitan city?

Seems like plenty cause for a change of location.

The latest from The Block

See The Block listings plus recaps, room reveals and renovating advice.

Visit The Block Hub

This article was originally published by Nine.com.au. Reproduced with permission.