If it's time to leave city living behind, should you make a treechange or seachange and which is better?
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Pete Wargent, co-founder of BuyersBuyers.com.au says that COVID-19 has helped accelerated a rising phenomenon of homeowners being able to work remotely. As more are drawn to lifestyle property options, a choice must be made between the beach and the bush. But which has been the superior choice in terms of capital growth?
Mr Wargent said that "we've clearly seen that both coastal and hinterland areas have seen a significant increase in buyer interest, and it's clearly picked up, even since February and March. But not all areas have experienced the same consistent demand over time."
We've clearly seen that both coastal and hinterland areas have seen a significant increase in buyer interest
- Pete Wargent
"For property buyers with a medium-term outlook, it's mostly been the coastal lifestyle locations around Australia which buyers keep on coming back to," Mr Wargent said.
RiskWise Property Research has done the hard work and identified the key areas in which to buy and what to expect once the property market stabilises in a post-pandemic era.
RiskWise CEO Doron Peleg said the onset of COVID-19 changed the way Australians worked as a nation with vastly increasing numbers working from home - and that this trend was here to stay.
"Before COVID-19 hit, there was already a strong trend of sea- and tree-change homebuyers looking for the best of all worlds - lifestyle, accessibility to employment hubs and affordable housing," said Mr Peleg.
"These include areas of southeast Queensland such as the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast, just over the NSW border in Byron Bay and further south on the Central Coast, in areas such as North Avoca, Terrigal and Wamberal."
Mr Peleg said beachside suburbs especially outperformed the market as they offered such fantastic lifestyle opportunities.
In fact, many investors consider both sea and treechange areas to be 'investment destinations' in which to achieve strong capital growth.
RiskWise has undertaken an analysis of popular treechange and seachange to determine which will deliver the stronger price growth in the next few years. The results showed that over the past five years seachange areas delivered more than double the price growth than treechange areas (36 per cent to 18 per cent respectively).
Mr Peleg said part of this was due to the popularity of beachside areas which had significantly increased in the past few years.
"However, treechange areas, in general, are significantly more affordable with a median price of $410,849, while seachange tends to come with a higher median price tag, at $742,528," Mr Peleg said.
Kingscliff had the strongest price growth of 61 per cent over the past five years with Noosa Heads and Lennox Head the two next best performers at 49 per cent and 47 per cent respectively.
Byron Bay was recently identified by RiskWise as one of the Top 7 regions in Australia to retire to because it offered good lifestyle options and solid capital growth.
Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast also made it to the Top 7 list of places to retire, with its lifestyle prospects driving capital growth.
When it came to treechange areas, Birregurra in Victoria topped the list for capital growth over a five-year period at 54 per cent, with Evandale in Tasmania close behind at 40 per cent.
"It's clear from these figures that seachange beats treechange hands down when it comes to solid and consistent capital growth," Mr Peleg said.
