How will stalled net overseas migration impact housing demand

Recent forecasts from Treasury indicate annual population growth across Australia is set to slow from around 1.4 per cent pre-COVID, to 0.6 per cent through the 2020/21 financial year according to CoreLogic’s research director Tim Lawless.

In raw numbers, that implies Australia’s annual population growth will reduce from around 350,000 in 2019 to 154,000 over the year ending June 2021 – a reduction of 56 per cent relative to 2019 levels.

In his most recent report Mr Lawless said that if the Treasury forecasts are right, this means the rate of population growth (a proxy for underlying housing demand) will be the lowest since 1917.

Most of the forecast decline in population growth is due to stalled net overseas migration, which is expected to drop from around 232,000 net migrants in the 2018/19 financial year to just 31,000 in 2020/21.

This will be disruptive to housing demand; however, the impact will not be evenly spread.

Nationally, population growth is comprised of net overseas migration (NOM) plus the natural increase (which is simply births minus deaths).

Over the past thirty years, NOM has accounted for 51per cent of Australia’s population growth. Since late 2016, NOM has increased in importance, comprising more than 60 per cent of population growth.

In 2019, roughly 70 per cent of Australian migrants arrived on temporary visas, with the large majority of these classified as students or visitors.

Permanent migrants comprised around 30 per cent of NOM, with most of these arriving under skilled visa arrangements (45 per cent of permanent migrants) with the second largest portion arriving under ‘special eligibility or humanitarian’ conditions (28 per cent).

It is reasonable to assume the large majority of temporary migrants will not be purchasing a home in Australia; they rent, additionally, it seems most permanent migrants will initially rent.

Previous research from the Australian Treasury showed approximately 85 per cent of recent skilled migrants were renters and around 80 per cent of those arriving on humanitarian grounds rented.

The same research showed almost 90 per cent of temporary skilled worker visa arrivals rented or lived in employer provided housing.

Intuitively, the longer the migrant has lived in Australia, the more likely they will be seeking to purchase a home.

Considering the substantial skew towards temporary migrants within the NOM figures, as well as the assumption that most permanent migrants will initially rent rather than buy, the greatest impact from a sharp drop in migration rates is likely to be in weaker rental demand than demand for established home sales.

This also implies a sharp drop in demand for new home construction targeted towards the rental market.

Geographically, stalled NOM will impact on Melbourne and Sydney the most, last year 84% of all overseas migration flowed into the capital cities.

Three quarters of those capital city migrants arrived in Sydney and Melbourne.

The full report by Tim Lawless can be found at corelogic.com.au.