A recent Victorian Population bulletin released by the Department of Planning and community development on population growth in Melbourne provides an insight into why the property market is experiencing unprecedented strength and price growth.

According to the bulletin Melbourne’s population grew by 272,775 persons for the 5 years ending June 2006 to a total 3,744,982. With the highest rate of population growth occurring in the outer western LGA of Melton of 8.9%, followed by other outer suburban LGA’s of Wyndham 5.5%, Cardinia 4.5% and Casey 4.1%.

The second highest growth in population occurred in the City of Melbourne with 8.6%. Melbourne experienced the highest change in population than any other capital city in Australia followed by Brisbane with 191,267.

Melbourne’s population is continuing to grow at a faster rate in the last 12 moths and this growth is impacting on the demand for owner occupied and rental accommodation.

Over the twelve months to September this year the median price of an inner city house increased by 24.2 per cent from $545,000 to $677,000. Over the same time the suburbs, more than 20 km from the CBD grew by 11.5 per cent from $288,000 to $321,000.

The picture is similar for units and apartments. Over the same time the median price of an inner cityunit or apartment increased by 18.3 per cent from $355,000 to $420,000 and in the outer suburbs by 8.3 per cent from $228,000 to $247,000.

The rental market is experiencing a similar demand and supply imbalance. Over the same twelve months the inner city vacancy rate did not rise above 1.7 per cent.This represented an extended period of time of a historically low rate.

When comparing the population growth with the REIV housing data it is clear to see that the population growth is having a significant impact on demand and affordability, particularly in inner Melbourne

Enzo Raimondo

CEO REIV

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 3:55 am and is filed under Buying Property, Selling Property. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.