COVID-change: It's the new tree-change or sea-change for city dwellers

Forget making a tree-change or a sea-change. Some city dwellers are making a COVID-change.

As the great working-from-home experiment of 2020 proves it is possible to be productive outside the office, a trickle of young people are looking to live in regional centres offering a more relaxed lifestyle.

The global coronavirus pandemic is prompting a rethink of priorities for many, with family time in focus and backyards highly prized.

And while the number who have started the process of relocating is modest so far, more are tipped to make the move in time.

Melbourne-based mortgage broker Chris Foster-Ramsay has seen two 30-something couples in recent weeks look to leave the city, eyeing the Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland respectively amid the turbulent times.

“There’s been an epiphany of sorts around clients who know their employer is set up to be flexible and it’s just an enhancement of flexible working arrangements,” said the principal finance broker at Foster Ramsay Finance.

“Regional areas that are within two hours of Melbourne, that have really good infrastructure, that have acceptable NBN speeds, in roles that really doesn’t matter whether they’re in Melbourne or Timbuktu, the role can still be fulfilled.”

He predicts the trend to grow among Millennial friendship groups, as city house prices remain high.

On the NSW Central Coast, LJ Hooker’s Tim Andrews is fielding inquiry from Sydney for a similar reason, especially from couples with children.

“Obviously people have learnt how to work remotely,” he said.

“People are just totally reassessing how they live their life, what their values are, how they want to live their live and what they want to do.”

He suspects government-sanctioned exercise time has given many an opportunity to walk and think with a clear head.

“They’re definitely coming up here, whether it be a tree-change, sea-change, whatever you want to call it – I think it’s a COVID-change,” he said.

“People have reassessed their life and looked at what’s important.”

Sydney buyers had also been inquiring as far away as Ballarat, more commonly the preserve of priced-out Melburnians, Biggin & Scott Ballarat’s Francesca Nicol said.

She has also noticed some potential purchasers rethink priorities and refocus on family, with one recent arrival looking to bring extended family to the town, and other young couples or families looking to move.

“Once upon a time most of the people who moved here already had one child and they had a second on the way,” she said.

“Now we’re getting a lot of people who are first-home buyers who would otherwise be buying an apartment.

“A lot of them are saying, ‘We’re planning for our future, we’ve got a different picture of our future now’.”

After the panic of the early days of the crisis, a sense of community and control is also highly valued.

“They want to be able to grow vegetables, have chooks,” she said. “It’s taking control of your own life, and not relying on conglomerates.”

Although working from home was not uncommon pre-pandemic, the virus had accelerated the shift, SGS Economics and Planning principal and partner Terry Rawnsley said.

“Some companies that have been lagging, or reluctant to let people do it full-time, have come to the party now through necessity,” he said.

“I’m suspecting this little surge in calls to agents through the regions are people who were thinking about it already… [now] they’ve pushed the button.”

He said adding more residents to regional areas was a positive that would bring extra money, extra children to local schools, and an awareness for young residents about the types of employment pathways that could be possible for them – project managers, for example, or computer programmers, traditionally more common in cities.

But he warned some tree-changers could find themselves craving more social interaction after a year, and the most attractive areas were ones with a vibrant social scene or great restaurants.

In Bendigo, a pick-up in inquiry from out-of-area families had been noticeable over the past week and a half for Tweed Sutherland First National’s Darryn O’Keefe.

“With COVID, a lot of people are realising that, is city living all that it’s cracked up to be?” he said.

“You can have that beautiful period home in Bendigo, you can have a lovely lifestyle with your family.

“For a lot of people, their commuting time living in Melbourne – it takes so much of their day.”