We’re all moving to the country — and it’s driving up house prices
Key takeaways
- Australians are moving from capital cities to regional areas in record numbers, outpacing the number of regional Australians moving to cities.
- Queensland's Sunshine Coast was the top spot for internal migration, followed by Geelong and the Fraser Coast.
- What's next: Property prices are slowing nationally, but regional markets are seeing more growth than the capital cities.
Australians are leaving the big cities behind and heading to the country. And fewer country dwellers are heading to the big smoke.
That's according to the latest data from the Regional Movers Index, established during the COVID-19 pandemic to track population movement between capital cities and regional Australia.
"Capital city residents moving to Australia's regions outnumbered those making a move in the opposite direction by 29.7 per cent" in the March 2026 quarter, according to the index.
Everyone's headed to the water
The most popular regional spot was the Sunshine Coast, grabbing 8.8% of all internal migration.
Geelong was second, with 5.3%, followed by the Fraser Coast (3.9%), Moorabool (3.5%) and Lake Macquarie (3.4%).
Victoria's Moorabool is the only area in the top five that isn't by the water.
Two cities dominated the capital exodus, with 55% of capital city migration coming from people leaving Sydney. Melbourne was next at 36%.
Adelaide and Brisbane were far behind that, at 5% and 1% respectively.
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Regional property prices outperform major cities
City to regional migration is showing up in property price data. Property price growth is slowing everywhere, but regional markets are driving more growth than many major cities.
Property prices nationally saw 0% month-on-month growth according to the latest Cotality Home Value Index.
Breaking this down by regional versus capitals, we see prices in capital cities fall by 0.1%, while regional prices rose 0.6%.
Quarterly growth was also 0.0% in the capital cities, and a much healthier 2.4% in regional.
Price falls have been sharpest in Sydney (-2.1% for the quarter) and Melbourne (-2.3% for the quarter).
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