Rising incomes pointing to 13 emerging suburbs for investment potential: Bernard Salt
East Perth had the greatest increase in notional income per person per household between 2006 and 2011, according to demographer and News Limited columnist Bernard Salt.
It's thereby been identified as one of Australia's top suburbs generating interest among key demographic drivers, including empty nesters, young professionals and DINKs (double income, no kids).
Salt says its a pointer to an increased ability among its residents to take out a mortgage – and an indication that a suburb is about to take off.
In fact Perth was home to the top three suburbs with increasing income, according to his piece published in The Australian.
“Western Australia's mining boom created an income-earning capacity and attracted an incoming or an evolving demographic that wanted an inner-city lifestyle on the edges of the CBD in places such as East Perth, Rivervale and Kings Park,” Salt writes.
Sydney’s Waterloo and Brisbane’s Murarrie had the next highest changes in earning power.
The top five suburbs are all located within 5 kilometres of the CBD and have a number of new apartments or inner-city townhouse redevelopments which are attracting a new demographic.
Salt found the average household size in the top four postcodes is between 1.7 and 2.2 people - below the Australian average of 2.6 people. In Murarrie it’s 2.7 people, which indicates there will be a further transition towards smaller households and apartments, according to Salt.
“Those postcodes that are taking off are located in the capital city of a state that has prospered (Perth) and where the property offering genuinely meets the aspirations of a rising demographic force,” Salt writes.
“In places such as Kings Park, for example, this probably includes fly-in, fly-out miners as well as the full range of advisers and technicians and financiers and incoming expats associated with mining.
“Then there is what I call the spillover effect: the gentrification of Brisbane's Cannon Hill spills into neighbouring Murarrie. Inner-city transformation without large-scale redevelopment projects (as in Waterloo for example) applies best to places where the housing stock is mixed and where there is an increasingly vibrant local urban environment.
“This includes places such as North and South Melbourne, Sydney's St Peters and Dulwich Hill and Brisbane's Albion.”
In Melbourne, the income per person increased most significantly in the central postcodes.
At the national level the average growth in income was 20%.
East Perth – 65%
Rivervale – 58%
Kings Park – 55%
Waterloo – 53%
Murarrie – 49%
Officer – 48%
Athol Park – 48%
Cannon Hill – 44%
Collingwood – 44%
Dawes Point – 44%%
St Peters – 41%
North Melbourne – 40%
South Melbourne – 40%
Do your own research
Don't wait for Bernard Salt to do the research, start looking at ABS Census date yourself using our guide to Census data for property investors.
Image courtesy of Andru1308/flickr.
