The major Aussie city that young parents are ditching in the tens of thousands – and where they’re now heading to raise their family instead
Tens of thousands of millennial parents are fleeing Sydney and flocking to southeast Queensland amid the country’s housing crisis.
The Sunshine State is one of Australia’s best performing property markets. House prices are still rising by double digits year-on-year, despite interest rates remaining high.
Higher-than-expected levels of overseas migration have also led to a major exodus from Sydney, by far Australia’s most expensive property market, with an average house price of almost $1.5 million.
The number of people fleeing Sydney is now almost equal to those pouring into Brisbane and the Gold Coast – and other parts of the Sunshine State – as millennials raising children pursue a better lifestyle for their money.
Mother-of-two Arianne Endrizzi and her husband Chris, both 36, swapped a two-bedroom Hornsby apartment in Sydney’s north four years ago for a five-bedroom house with a pool, set on a third of an acre in Palm Cove , near Cairns in the tropical far north of Queensland.
“We haven’t looked back, we love the lifestyle, we love the sun, we love the outdoor activities,” Ms Enrizzi told Daily Mail Australia.
The $1.1 million they spent on a tropical waterfront dream home would barely buy a typical western Sydney home – let alone a large acreage.
“More bang for your buck when it comes to lifestyle and affordability,” she said.
Tens of thousands of Australians flee Sydney and pile into south-east Queensland amid housing crisis (pictured are schoolboys in Surfers Paradise)
Arianne Endrizzi (right) and her husband Chris Endrizzi (centre) swapped a Hornsby unit in Sydney’s north four years ago for a five-bedroom house with a pool on a third of an acre in Palm Cove, near Cairns in the far north Queensland (they are pictured with Arianne’s mother Susan Putnam, left, and Arianne’s son Chase)
“That same block in Sydney would be completely out of reach.”
The working parents love living in a town with beachside markets, just a short drive from Port Douglas or Cairns.
“With Palm Cove, sunny beaches and warm weather, it’s just a slower pace of life that contrasts with Sydney,” she said.
‘It also coincided with our family changes, as I became a mother of two young children, so it just provided an idyllic environment in which to raise a family – a strong sense of community and beautiful natural surroundings.’
Mrs Endrizzi is a fashion model, while her husband is a machine operator in the resources industry and regularly flies to the Northern Territory for work.
They also live off three investment properties in south-east Queensland.
Her baby boomer mother Susan Putnam, 70, has since moved in with them at the sprawling estate, becoming a grandmother to Chase, two, and Aurora, one, after previously sharing an apartment with her daughter.
Married mother Anne Crarey, 43, moved to the Gold Coast from Wantirna in Melbourne’s east with her seven-year-old son in 2021 to escape Victoria’s cold winters after noticing a price increase in the southeast Queensland property market.
The $1.1 million they spent on a tropical waterfront dream home could barely buy a typical western Sydney home – let alone a large acreage (pictured are Arianne and Chris Endrizzi with Nero , their 11-year-old Italian mastiff)
‘My husband’s family all lived on the Gold Coast – we were planning to move to the Gold Coast when my son went to Prep, but we ended up moving 18 months early because we were seeing house prices rising every month, so we decided to take the step instead of waiting,” she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I feel like the move has allowed me to relax a little more.
‘I can have a bit better work-life balance and be more available to my son, because I don’t have to spend more than an hour and a half in traffic on the way to work.’
She was able to move north as executive general manager of real estate services at Little Real Estate, which has offices in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
“I wanted my son to be able to play outside in the winter and not have to worry about putting on layers and layers of clothes,” Ms Crarey said.
During the last financial year, a net of 30,865 New South Wales residents fled to another state, while 29,910 residents moved to Queensland, according to new Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday.
Western Australia was the only other state to see a large increase in net interstate migration, with 9,742 people arriving.
Perth, the capital of the resource-rich state, also has the lowest rental vacancy rate in Australia at 0.6 per cent, which is almost half the level of 1.1 per cent in Brisbane and the national average of 1.4 per cent, it shows new data from SQM Research.
Anne Crarey, a 43-year-old married mother with a seven-year-old son, moved to the Gold Coast from Melbourne in 2021 to escape Victoria’s cold winters after noticing a price increase in the southeast Queensland property market
WA also had Australia’s strongest population growth at 2.8 percent – well above the national average of 2.1 percent.
Victoria, Australia’s worst-performing property market, actually saw a net increase of 664 new residents from the interstate, with Melbourne houses and apartments now more affordable than those in Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth.
Ms Crarey predicted interest rate cuts next year would revive Melbourne’s sluggish property market and overcome the impact of the state government’s land tax on investors as the Victorian capital sees a major influx of overseas migration, including international students.
“That’s where we’re going to see some movement in Melbourne, that’s when I feel like the investment is going to come back into Melbourne,” she said.
“I don’t think much will change in Queensland; Sydney, we just have to watch and see.”
Intriguingly, Victoria’s population growth rate of 2.4 percent was stronger than Queensland’s 2.3 percent level.
NSW had a below-average growth rate of 1.7 percent, reflecting a large interstate exodus but large inflows from abroad.
In most of Australia it is More residents left for another part of Australia than came to live there.
South Australia had a net outflow of 1,569, despite house prices in Adelaide still showing double-digit annual growth, yielding weaker population growth of 1.4 percent.
Tasmania, an underperforming property market, saw an exodus of 2,557 residents and Australia’s weakest population growth at 0.3 percent.
In the Northern Territory, Australia’s cheapest housing market in which to buy a home, 3,775 people moved out, leading to weak population growth of 0.8 percent.
This happened as 1,550 residents fled the Australian Capital Territory, which had a below-average population growth rate of 1.7 percent.
Australia’s population grew by 2.1 per cent in the year to June, with 445,600 overseas migrants moving in, a level more than four times the net birth rate of 106,400.
The inflow was also 50,600 higher than the May budget forecast of 395,000 for 2023-2024.
Sydney received the largest share of permanent and long-term foreign arrivals, with 142,473 people moving to NSW, which received almost a third of the national inflow.
Melbourne also received a large influx of new migrants, with 142,473 foreigners moving to Victoria, ahead of Queensland’s 74,932, South Australia’s 23,273, Western Australia’s 58,082, Tasmania’s 3,820, the Northern Territory’s 3,643 and the ACT’s 6,523.