Housing crisis sees more Australians moving to country towns

ABC NEWS (Australia)

As the housing crisis continues to bite, more Australians are moving to inland country towns in search of affordable homes. The small town of Tambellup in Western Australia’s grain belt has welcomed half a dozen new residents in less than a year.

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00:00In Tambalup, a residential revival is underway.

00:06It's a beautiful old 1930s vintage house.

00:09It's got hundred year old roses all around the garden, so it's just a beautiful place.

00:13A year ago the town was peppered with vacant homes.

00:16Now almost all have been sold to people looking for a place they can afford.

00:20We got a half acre block with this house for under $170,000.

00:24So it was a very good price compared to other country towns

00:28and still close enough to everything that we needed.

00:30The influx of new residents is welcome.

00:33It's good to have all our houses full.

00:36Obviously the more people we have in the town the better.

00:39We'd like to see some more young families.

00:41And it doesn't take long to sell a house in Broomhill or Tambalup these days.

00:46The Real Estate Institute says the median price for a Tambalup house was $135,000.

00:52That's well below the Perth median price of $735,000

00:56and the national median of $800,000.

00:59As a result this town's population has grown by 8% in one year.

01:04At the national scale we are seeing people moving away from large metropolitan centres

01:10and that's really caused by the very, very high cost of living in those areas.

01:14While coastal relocations have been on the rise for years now,

01:17there's a new trend heading inland.

01:20People moving to the drier wheat belt communities,

01:23both in New South Wales, Victoria and across in Western Australia, is more unusual.

01:28Our aim at the moment is to stay here until we die.

01:32We are that happy with the community.

01:34A dying wish, breathing new life into regional Australia.

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