Many Australians are leaving big cities in the hope of finding a more affordable lifestyle, but an unexpected trend has led people to return to the cities they fled.
Alice Raspin, A 27-year-old woman and her partner, who have a young son, left Brisbane due to high rent costs and moved to the regional city of Cairns in Queensland.
According to a report from PropTrack, Brisbane recorded the second lowest vacancy rate in the country in March, at 1.02 per cent.
Ms. Raspin and her partner wanted to create a better life for themselves and were willing to take action to make it happen.
They are not alone in making this decision. New data has shown that Regional Movements Index The study showed that the number of city dwellers choosing to live in the regions reached a 12-month high in the third quarter of 2024.
The report, produced by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and the Regional Australia Institute (RAI), analyses trends in people moving to and from regional Australia from data collected from 16 million bank customers.
The data showed that 24.2 percent more people move from cities to regions than return in the opposite direction.
Mrs. Raspin works in insurance, and her annual income is $180,000, including her partner’s salary, but even that was not enough to keep them in town.
Instead, the couple decided to change their lives and moved to another area, but it didn’t work out.
She posted on social media that after 12 months of living in Cairns “to get ahead financially”, she and her partner would be moving to Brisbane.
“We need our village more than we need money,” she wrote.
No amount of “bank balance” could compensate for watching her son grow up without family, Ms. Raspin added.
Her admission revealed a wider trend, with other Australians saying they had done exactly the same thing.
“We did the same thing in 2020. Our son was the same age and we made so many beautiful memories. We fasted for 10 months. It was hard to come back, but no regrets,” one wrote.
“We were thinking about moving because of the cost of living. But my whole family lives in Brisbane, so I can’t do it,” admitted another.
“We writers did the same thing. Family is more important,” wrote another.
One woman said she and her partner left Queensland for Victoria, but two years later she became pregnant again and was not ready to have a baby “away” from her family.
Ms Raspin told news.com.au they wanted to move to Cairns for all the classic reasons and in the hope of making a financial breakthrough.
“We originally moved to Cairns for a more relaxed and less expensive lifestyle. When we found a rental here in 2023, it was over $100 cheaper than the rental we were renting in Brisbane,” she said.
In Brisbane, they were paying $640 a week; in Cairns, they were originally paying $540 a week, but their rent has now risen to $590.
She said the move paid off for the young couple, giving them a financial boost to pay their bills.
“We were able to pay off all of our consumer debt and save $10,000 for home insurance in one year. Gas and child care are also much cheaper here,” she explained.
Although they found the lifestyle cheaper, they also found it more isolated.
“We have a two-year-old son and wanted to be closer to our family so he could grow up with his cousins and grandparents. Ultimately, we decided that family was more important to us than money,” she said.
Ms Raspin said she was well aware that staying in Cairns might be the better option financially, but it was not worth it.
“Yes, while we completely agree that living in the area is cheaper, it comes at the expense of your village. Raising children alone can be very difficult and isolating,” she explained.
They also planned to move back to Brisbane and live with family to help afford living in a big city.
“When we get back to Brisbane, we plan to find a place to rent with my husband’s relatives, as their prices are very high. So the rent should be pretty similar in the end,” she said.
