Property Investors Look Further Afield For Opportunities
One of the dominant investment trends of 2023 was more East Coast investors buying in Western Australia for affordability and superior returns
3 min
More investors are looking beyond the neighbourhoods they live in for investment opportunities after the pandemic property boom saw regional markets surge in value at a greater pace than the capital cities, as more people who could work from home left the cities for greener pastures.
McGrath Estate Agents CEO John McGrath said this regional relocation of owner-occupiers opened investors’ eyes to markets outside their own neighbourhoods. Changes in marketing and technology brought about due to lockdowns, such as video inspections, online auctions and signing contracts electronically, helped buyers feel more comfortable with purchasing property remotely. “The prospect of phone bidding and purchasing properties sight unseen is no longer foreign,” he said.
Data from MCG Quantity Surveyors proves that investors are exploring new markets for investment. The latest data for 2023 shows the average distance between where landlords live and invest has ballooned to 1,502km, up from 857km in 2022 and 294km before the pandemic.
MCG managing director, Mike Mortlock, said the data revealed two insights. “Firstly, property investors remain agile and will park their capital in whichever investor-friendly national location and asset type offers the greatest possibility of maximising their return,” he said. “The second is that Western Australia has become the centre of Australian property investment. There’s little doubt its popularity with real estate buyers from the East Coast has increased the gap between home and investment.” MCG data shows 31.86% of Australian property investors bought in Western Australia in the first quarter of 2023, up from just 9.38% in the first quarter of 2022, revealing “a seismic shift away from east coast property investment”, he said.
In 2023, CoreLogic data shows Perth and Regional Western Australia delivered the best total returns (rents and capital growth combined) for investors of all capital cities and regional areas in Australia. Perth’s total return was 20.7 percent and regional Western Australia’s was 14.8 percent. The best-performing regions were Mandurah and Bunbury with 20 percent and 15 percent jumps in home values respectively over the year. Rents in Perth and Regional Western Australia also increased faster than any other area in Australia, up by 13.4 percent and 10.4 percent respectively.
One of the main attractions of Western Australia to East Coast investors is affordability. The Perth house price median is $691,100 and the regional house price median is $398,915. McGrath Estate Agents CEO John McGrath said: “This move towards remote investing has largely been driven by the perception of better capital growth prospects in the regions, and higher rental yields that usually come with more affordable properties.” Investors in regional areas can usually afford to buy houses, which typically deliver better capital growth than apartments, and they can buy with smaller loans, meaning they can manage rising interest rates more easily.
PropTrack recently put together a panel of industry experts and asked them to create a list of 100 suburbs that they think will outperform in 2024. PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said 40 percent of the suburbs selected were in regional areas. PropTrak director of economic research Cameron Kusher said the selected regional areas were typically close to a capital city or had a diversified economy. “These tend to be key drivers in regional markets and reflect our expectations of the types of locations in regional areas likely to see the strongest price growth next year,” he said.
Here are some examples of the regional cities or suburbs tipped for outperformance in 2024.
NSW – Dubbo
Simon Pressley of Propertyology selects Dubbo. “Decades of official evidence supports Dubbo’s status as an extremely resilient and low risk option for property investors with a budget of up to $600,000,” Mr Pressley said.
VIC – Delacombe, Ballarat
Buyers’ agent Kate Hill from Adviseable says Delacombe is a fast-growing part of the Ballarat West Growth Area and offers strong capital growth potential and good yields. “Ballarat was recently identified by the ABS as the fastest growing inland city in Australia and, according to some forecasters, can expect more strong price growth,” she said.
QLD – Darling Heights, Toowoomba
Home to the University of Southern Queensland, Ms Hill says Darling Heights has a range of amenities and will benefit from Toowoomba’s involvement in the 2032 Olympics. “There is a massive program of infrastructure development underway, planning more than $13.1 billion of infrastructure and major projects, both private and public,” Ms Hill said.
SA – Victor Harbor
Mr Pressley says Victor Harbor is to Adelaide what the Sunshine Coast is to Brisbane. “It has one the highest rates of internal migration in the country. Very popular for the one in five Australians who now derive their income from home, and for retirees.”
WA – Mandurah
“Mandurah is the lifestyle capital of Western Australia because of everything it has to offer without the big price tag,” said Ray White Managing Director, Dan White. “When it comes to property, Mandurah offers something for everyone, from affordable options for first-home buyers to upmarket canal homes.”
TAS – Launceston
Mr Pressley says this regional city has a diverse economy and “one of the best lifestyle offerings in all of Australia”. “Over the last 20 years, the average annual capital growth rate for Launceston houses of 8.6 percent is far superior to Sydney and Melbourne. Rental yields are also superior.”
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2 min
In high-end homes, the most telling upgrades are no longer the obvious ones.
It’s not just the marble in the kitchen or the view from the terrace. Increasingly, it’s the rooms you don’t see, and how well they actually work.
The laundry is a perfect example.
Once treated as a purely functional space, it is now being reconsidered by architects and homeowners alike as a zone where performance, hygiene and design need to align.
And for buyers operating at the top end of the market, that shift is less about aesthetics and more about control.
Because in a home where everything is curated, inefficiency stands out.
ASKO’s latest “Laundry Care 2.0” range leans directly into that mindset, positioning the laundry as a long-term investment rather than a basic appliance purchase.
Built on more than 75 years of engineering, the Scandinavian brand’s latest systems focus on durability, precision and what is becoming a defining luxury in modern homes: quiet.
One of the more telling innovations is something most buyers would never think to question until it fails.
Traditional washing machines rely on rubber seals that trap dirt and bacteria over time. ASKO replaces that entirely with a steel solution designed to maintain a cleaner, more hygienic drum.
It’s not a headline feature. But it is exactly the kind of detail buyers tend to notice.
Then there is the issue of noise.
As open-plan living has become standard in prestige homes, the background hum of appliances has gone from unnoticed to intrusive.
ASKO’s suspension system is engineered to minimise vibration almost entirely, allowing machines to run without disrupting the wider home environment.
In practical terms, that means a load can run late at night without carrying through the house. In lifestyle terms, it means the home functions as intended.
The same thinking extends to the drying process. Uneven loads, tangled fabrics and repeat cycles are treated as inefficiencies rather than inconveniences, with technology designed to keep garments moving evenly and reduce wear over time.
For buyers, this is where the value proposition sharpens.
It is not about having more features. It is about removing friction.
Less maintenance. Less noise. Less time spent correcting what should have worked the first time.
In that sense, modern laundry is no longer just a utility. It is a reflection of how a home performs behind the scenes, and whether it lives up to the expectations set by everything else.
Because at this level, luxury is not just what you see.
It is what you don’t have to think about.
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