Regional versus city. Where is it best to invest?

Right now, regional towns are booming. We’re in the midst of a major change to both our lifestyles and our working arrangements and there is a lot of buying and investing activity in regional towns.

The key – whether you’re buying regional or city – is to find a location that still has room for capital growth.

Let’s have a look at Byron Bay as an example. According to leading property researchers, CoreLogic, the year-on-year capital growth to December 2020 for Byron was 26%. That’s phenomenal growth. But has it peaked? How much more growth can you squeeze from a regional market?

I wouldn’t recommend that you buy in any market that has gone through such a major surge, simply because, even though there is still strong demand for housing, there is little room left for capital growth.

The keys that I look for are locations that:

  • have strong infrastructure spend,
  • have good transport links,
  • are going through gentrification,
  • are appealing to live in, and
  • have forecast population growth.

The location must have potential to improve and become a more desirable place to live.

If you look at Warwick in South East Queensland, it’s just one hour from Toowoomba, 2 hours from Brisbane and it’s got some massive infrastructure projects underway, including $9.3B Inland Rail development, University of Qld’s $125M Solar Farm plus, ready to start construction is the largest land based wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere, with an investment of $500M. There are also millions of dollars of private and public investment in projects including aged care expansion, water infrastructure and supply, wildlife and habitat recovery, airport improvements plus health, commercial, shopping, leisure and residential developments.

These projects are creating thousands of jobs and improving the value of the region as well as quality of life for residents.

This is what I look for when recommending locations to clients for investment.

So whilst regional is the place that many investors are looking right now, if a city location meets that same criteria, I’d be taking a good hard look at it.

As I always recommend, look past the hype to the facts and the numbers.

If you’re curious about where to invest right now, take a look at the properties below and give me a call. I’d love to chat about your goals and how we can help you meet them.