On the road
I've been travelling quite a bit over recent weeks, adversely impacting the frequency of my blogging.
Still, it's pretty much been as you were anyway.
Everywhere seems busier - especially Melbourne, I thought - and the cost of eating out is still high.
On Friday, the ABS released its latest arrivals and departures figures, which were massively stronger than anyone has been expecting, and for net permanent and long-term movements were tracking more than 40 per cent higher than anything we've ever seen before.
Another thing to note is that while short-term visitors are still languishing below pre-COVID levels, on average people are staying for considerably longer (which in plain English basically means more international students, and fewer tourists).
Source: Fabo, Macquarie
Of course, the monthly numbers are prone to bouncing around a fair bit - especially at the moment! - but Justin Fabo at Macquarie handily smooths out a moving quarterly average, which unequivocally shows net inbound overseas migration running at by far the highest levels ever.
In fact, this seems to be pointing to population growth of above +650,000 per annum at the current speed.
This will slow down eventually as international student numbers are fully normalised.
Source: Fabo, Macquarie
In other news, Australia just missed out on the top spot of median wealth per adult for the 2022 calendar year according to the latest UBS Global Wealth Report - largely due to significantly adverse foreign exchange movements against the US dollar over 2022 - but still came in well above Hong Kong, Switzerland, Canada, NZ, UK, and all the rest...on this measure of wealth.
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2023
That said, Australia will move back to the top of the list in 2023, with PropTrack and Ray White reporting housing prices rebounding from last year's slump to recapture record highs.
In fact, Ray White saw this happening as far back as July 2023, with further price increases reported since then.
Ray White are also seeing the seasonal surge in listings now moderating, while high population growth explains why stock has remained so tight.
Year-on-year house prices were up by a bit more than +6 per cent in September, with especially strong growth in capital cities such as Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin, and Sydney.
Source: Ray White
While some regional markets remain below previous highs, perhaps understandably, the capital city downturn has largely been erased.
