Property investors should ask: Where do we all live?

Back in 186 when I started in this game there were 15.6 million living in down under. 

A time of shoulder pads, mullets, Pacman, Rubik’s Cube and ‘We are the world’.  

I even had thickish long hair and, for mine, the music sucked much of the time.

Anyway, fast forward to today and some 24.6 million people live in Australia.

That’s a big increase – some 56% or 8.8 million people or about 295,000 new residents per annum.

This increase over the past 30 years is the equivalent of adding today’s NSW Central Coast (Gosford, Wyong and Woy Woy) to the nation’s total head count every year.

Over the last five years, the population increase has been closer to 400,000 each year.

That’s the size of Canberra!

Below are three tables.

All are based on ABS Census data.

•  The first shows the top 20 urban areas in Australia in 1986.  Some 66% of us lived in these top 20 areas.
•  Table two shows the top 20 urban areas in 2016.  Seven out of ten of us live in these places today.  Our population is concentrating.  Also note the change in rankings since 1986.
• The third table shows the total change in population over the past 30 years.  Some areas like the Gold and Sunshine Coasts have seen massive growth (as a percentage) over this period.  It is a real challenge to manage such growth well.Table 1: 1986 Top 20 urban areas in Australia

Table 3: Population growth over last 30 years

In the next few days, I will do similar, but this time for jobs.  Until then, cheers.

PS. I do miss Pacman but not the hair (seriously) nor many of the 1980 tunes.

About Michael Matusik Michael is director of independent property advisory Matusik Property Insights. He is independent, perceptive and to the point; has helped over 550 new residential developments come to fruition and writes his insightful Matusik Missive