Report reveals the most popular suburbs to move to in different cities

Australians are increasingly moving to regional Australia, but new data shows that inner-city locations haven’t lost all of their shine.

Despite a flight to the country, coastal towns and middle and outer ring city suburbs amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a string of inner-city locations – particularly in Sydney and Melbourne – have remained popular, figures from removalist search engine Muval show.

The Sydney suburbs of Surry Hills, Paddington and Newtown and Melbourne’s South Yarra, Brunswick and Richmond were among the most in-demand suburbs in New South Wales and Victoria over the year to June, The Muval Index 2021 shows.

Byron Bay was also among the most in-demand suburbs in New South Wales – those with the strongest level of removalist enquiries from people moving within them and to them from other locations.

Meanwhile, the Gold Coast suburbs of Southport, Surfers Paradise and Robina were among the hottest suburbs in Queensland.

In Western Australia, the most enquiries were from those looking to move to or within beachside Scarborough, with Fremantle and Rockingham, to the city’s south, also proving popular.

The inner suburbs of Braddon and Belconnen, in the city’s north-west, were the most moved-to suburbs in the ACT.

“Since COVID, we’ve seen a massive increase in people looking to move … this is the busiest sustained period [removalists] have had,” said Muval co-founder and chief executive James Morrell.

“Usually, we see the busy period from October to February … but that peak demand has been maintained for the year-to-date.”

Mr Morrell said changing lifestyle preferences post lockdowns last year, the rise in flexible work arrangements and record-low interest rates had been the key drivers for the increase in Australians looking to make a move.

The rise of remote working has made it possible for Nicki Barry and her young family to swap Brisbane for the Gold Coast next week.

“We moved to Fairfield about five years ago, my husband and I, just to be in the inner-city close to work, close to the city and everything. Now, we have two little kids, and even though we both still work in the city with all the COVID restrictions, we’re both still working from home.”

So, when it came time to upsizing, they decided to look further afield to see where they could get more space for their money and ended up purchasing in Coomera Waters, in the northern Gold Coast.

“The house we’ve bought is on the canals, and so I just think for what you get and for peace and quiet it’s a really good option for us,” she said.

It wouldn’t have been feasible without being able to reduce the number of days she was required in the office long-term, Mrs Barry said.

While Ms Barry and her family are leaving Brisbane, it has the highest percentage of inbound interest of all the cities, at 25 per cent of all enquiries, the Muval figures show.

Melbourne had the greatest proportion of outbound enquiries, at about 35 per cent of requests in June, with the recent lockdown sparking a resurgence in people looking to leave the city behind.

“[However,] as more and more people get vaccinated, and we go through that process … we could see a reversal of people moving back down to Victoria, we don’t know how long that will take, but we do think the exodus from cities to regional areas will still continue as places get better connected to the internet, and we see a lot more people working from home,” the report said.

Sydney has yet to see a similar spike with its latest lockdown, though there has been a 21 per cent drop in people looking to move to the harbour city in recent weeks.

The coronavirus pandemic had sped up what decades of government policy had hoped to achieve – the decentralisation of Australia’s population away from the big cities – said Elin Charles-Edwards, a senior lecturer in Human Geography at the University Queensland.

“The potential positives to decentralisation include lower congestion in cities and economic growth in regional Australia,” she noted in the report.

“[However,] the challenge of increased demand for housing and services in regional areas includes preserving the very lifestyle that makes regional Australia attractive in the first place.”