THE Lake Macquarie median house price has edged above the Newcastle figure, giving lakeside property owners and real estate agents rare bragging rights over their Novocastrian neighbours.
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The surprising statistics are revealed in quarterly indicators released at the Hunter Research Foundation (HRF) economic breakfast on Friday.
The March indicators also show a boost in dwelling approvals and continued recovery in the Hunter labour market, despite recent coal redundancy announcements, with 14,000 more people employed in March than in January last year.
The median house price of $500,000 in the Lake Macquarie local government area surpassed the Newcastle figure of $490,000, with HRF CEO Brent Jenkins surmising that outside interest was swelling lake house values.
“The reality is that Sydney is getting more and more expensive, so the commentary I have read is that we are going to get to a point where people are seriously looking at building or buying outside the Sydney region,” he said.
Lake Macquarie real estate agent Neil Fry, of McGrath Charlestown, concurred, saying 70 per cent of his buyers were from outside the region, with sea-changing baby boomers making up the main demographic profile.
“They want the lake and the ocean and they want to live in area that is not crowded,” he said.
“Proximity to Sydney is very important to a lot of people too, which is why areas like Caves Beach and Swansea Heads are becoming more popular.”
Mr Fry sold a house in Swansea Heads to Sydney retirees for $2.05 million last year and two weeks ago secured $1.125 million for a Blacksmiths property.
Dr Jenkins said migration to the area may have also contributed to a 26 per cent rise in dwelling approvals across the Hunter in the year to March 2016, with 4,309 homes approved to be built.
Low interest rates, low unemployment and land availability were also factors likely to have influenced the spike in approvals.
He said the result boded well for the regional economy given the strong economic multiplier effect of construction.
The surge of employment during the quarter has led to the lowest unemployment rates since January 2014, with an overall Hunter rate of 5.4 per cent in April, down from 9.8 per cent a year earlier.
Improvement in youth unemployment has also been marked, with the figure dropping from 19.4 per cent in November 2014 to 13 per cent in the March quarter.
Dr Jenkins said the results could be attributed to a regional shift to services-sector employment and a rise in part-time employment.
“The Hunter is moving away from its traditional mining and manufacturing roots to be more like the average Australian economy, with more dependence on services,” he said.
“There are 45,000 businesses in the Hunter of all sizes, and 65 per cent are in the services sector. That is where the bulk of our business and employment is and that is where we will see the bulk of our growth.”
