Terry’s View: Skilled Migrants In Demand

Overseas migration numbers have been front and centre of political debate recently with a call for reduced numbers and the intake to be more targeted.

Change to migration levels have a huge impact on residential real estate. More people lead to more demand for housing and in recent years the rate of creation of new dwellings has not kept pace with the demand created by new population.

Once we got through the Covid years, there was (from 2022) a massive increase in the nation’s population, despite a gradual falloff in natural increase.

Overseas migrant numbers rose to unprecedented levels – and for two years the national population grew by more than 600,000 on average.

The creation of new dwellings has not kept pace with this above-normal level of population growth – and that is reflected in the level of rental vacancies.

The national vacancy rate, according to SQM Research, is 1.3% – and has been stuck below 1.5% since 2021. Those levels are extremely tight and mean many locations have very few vacant properties available for renters.

Despite this housing issue, the reality is that Australia needs migration. Those who are calling for zero migration have not considered the other problems which would result if migration was completely cut off.

Without migrants, many industries in Australia would not be able to find the workers they need, ranging from aged care workers, to doctors to tradies. Without more tradespeople, Australia can’t build the houses needed to turn around the national housing crisis.

Australia needs migrants – but fewer than in the past couple of years and also more targeted selections to those who can provide what the nation needs to fix the housing crisis.