Better be prepared Sydney, as your crown for the Australia’s most sought-after address might be passed on to the Victoria capital.
Melbourne is threatening to steal Sydney’s crown, due to the Victoria capital’s rise in the housing market.
After voted as the world’s most liveable city for the sixth year in a row, Melbourne’s prices in properties have skyrocketed and grew faster compared to its rival.
How fast? According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, houses in Melbourne were selling an average of 6.9 percent in the year to September. On the other hand, houses in Sydney were sold by just 3.2 percent.
The reason behind this is supply and demand; people are lured to buy houses in a place with affordable properties combined with Melbourne’s image of being a cultural and sporting hotspot.
“The reality is that Melbourne is now expanding by about 100,000 people every year,” SQM Research founder Louis Christopher said.
“That’s like the equivalent of the MCG at full capacity. A lot of those people do have money to go and buy a property and that’s what they’ve been doing.”
Christopher added that if the unthinkable happens, Melbourne may “end up more expensive than Sydney.”
The shift between prices is a big jump since Melbourne has a median dwelling price of just over $700,000, compared with Sydney that hovers around $1 million, according to news.com.au.
However, demographers have been predicting for the past two years that around 2050 Melbourne will become Australia’s biggest city.
Social researcher Mark McCrindle explained that the increase of population in Melbourne that is outpacing Sydney for years will definitely reflect property prices increase.
“The faster the demographic growth, normally, the higher the prices go,” McCrindle said. “We often forget that there’s only an eight percent difference in the size of the two cities.”
Sydney may have the throne, but Melbourne is slowly catching up to become a candidate for the position. Thanks to the sporting and cultural reputation of Melbourne and property affordability, people are flocking the area, leading to an increase in population and prices.
Commercial property broker victoria will benefit with the improvement since not only tourists will flock the area, but also people who want to move to a different area. They should be vigilant and improve customer service to accommodate the rush of customers and have stable sales.
