Do you want a Big Australia?
Both of our major political parties are in favour of a big Australia. Of course a big Australia means many more people, at present we are seeing an additional one million people being added to Australia’s population around every three years. The city of Sydney now has a population of over five million with another 1.5 million to be added to Sydney alone within the next 16 years.
The many arguments for a big Australia state that more population means more economic growth; another argument is that new migrants are of working age which helps off-sets the problem of the very large number of Australians reaching retirement age. Our future as an aging nation is not nearly as bleak as some of our Asian and European friends.
There are many dissenters to the Big Australia policy and their arguments are discussed in today’s news article (see http://www.smh.com.au/comment/is-there-room-for-big-australia-20160901-gr6atz ).
Wilton Junction. The newest of our New Towns – 70Km from the CBD
The implications of this massive growth in population should make the property investor stop and think. In Sydney, for example, using an average of 3 persons per household, we actually need an additional 500,000 homes over the next 16 years. It is only these numbers that can make some sense of the massive new developments happening in our North West and South West in particular. No longer are we seeing massive new ‘commuter suburbs’ being built on our city fringes but instead whole new towns with their own job-creating infrastructure.
The priority new town development area has been announced and will commence next year at Wilton Junction – (http://talkwiltonjunction.com.au/) – a new community to cater initially for 12,000 new homes and 35,000 new residents. Wilton Junction is just over 70Km from the CBD. If you have a trip to this new town, at around the 50km mark from the CBD just off the M5 bordering Narellan is the new town of Oran Park – (http://www.oranparktown.com.au/) – and its surrounding suburbs. Oran Park has transformed from the old Oran Park race track and surrounding paddocks to a hub of hundreds of homes surrounded by new commercial development with an eventual target of hosting a population of 25,000 people and maybe the same again in the surrounding area. It all looks very grand and we may wonder where all these ‘new’ people may come from?
We have two massive new developments here, one well-underway and another due to start shortly and between them they will offer a home in a new town to around no more than 90,000 people! Where will we house the remaining 1.4 million? Are we really building too many units in Sydney?
There is still great opportunity here for the astute property investment.
