Where Australia's 300,000 New Migrants Are Landing, and What It Means for Property

Migration is slowing, but the pressure is only concentrating. Perth, Brisbane and the regions are absorbing the arrivals that Sydney and Melbourne can no longer house, and that is where rents and prices will climb hardest.

Net overseas migration is still the single biggest force shaping Australia's housing market. It reached 306,000 in the 2024-25 financial year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), down from 429,000 the year before and off the 538,000 peak of 2022-23, but still above pre-pandemic levels. Combined with natural increase, that took the population to 27.8 million as at 31 December 2025. The number of temporary visa holders hit a record 2.98 million on 1 January 2026, on Home Affairs figures. The slowdown in the headline number hides the real story: not how many people are arriving, but where they are landing.

Sydney and Melbourne still take the most, but are leaking residents

Melbourne added about 105,000 people in 2024-25 and Sydney about 75,200, almost entirely on overseas migration, ABS data shows. Net overseas migration made up 77 per cent of Melbourne's growth and effectively all of Sydney's. Both cities lost residents to other states at the same time. Sydney shed a net 33,282 people to interstate moves and Melbourne 8,554, with families priced out and heading north and west. The result is churn. Migrants and international students flow into the inner and middle rings while established households leave, keeping rental demand tight even as the local population reshuffles.

Queensland and WA are the real winners

Queensland and Western Australia are the only states posting meaningful net gains from overseas and interstate migration combined. South East Queensland (Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast) is the top destination for people moving between states, and Perth is the fastest-growing capital by percentage, on the back of mining-sector jobs and relative affordability. That demand is feeding the price outlook. KPMG forecasts Perth to lead national house-price growth in 2026 at 12.8 per cent, with Brisbane close behind at 10.9 per cent. These are forecasts, and not all agree: ANZ, Westpac and CBA have since pencilled in more modest growth.

International students concentrate the pressure

Australia has set aside about 295,000 new international student places for 2026, with roughly 800,000 students in the country overall. Their footprint is highly localised. Students make up about 6 per cent of renters nationally, but more than a fifth of renters in the City of Melbourne and around a quarter in inner Adelaide, according to reporting in The Indian Sun. With a projected shortfall of about 84,000 student beds by late 2026, that concentrated demand lands hardest on inner-city apartments and share housing.

Regional Australia is catching the overflow

Government policy actively steers skilled migrants toward regional areas to fill labour shortages, and the overflow from unaffordable capitals is reinforcing it. Centres including Newcastle, Wollongong, the Central Coast, Geelong, Ballarat, Toowoomba and the Sunshine Coast are forecast to grow 5 to 8 per cent in 2026, with rental yields in the 5 to 7 per cent range in many of them, though yields vary by town.

What it means for the property market

The immediate effect is on rents. Every capital city vacancy rate is below 2 per cent, with the national rate at 1.2 per cent in May 2026, according to SQM Research. Capital-city house rents rose 7.7 per cent over the year to the June 2026 quarter, on Domain figures, and Domain forecasts record rents in every capital by the end of 2026. The pace is easing, though. SQM expects capital-city rental growth of 2 to 4 per cent in 2026, as affordability caps how far rents can climb.

The second-round effect is on prices. As migrants settle and shift from renting to buying, they add purchase demand in the affordable and mid-price segments, which is exactly where Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide are strongest. In Sydney, growth is concentrating in infrastructure corridors such as Parramatta, Blacktown and St Marys, and in affordability markets like Lakemba and Campbelltown.

Underlying all of it is the supply gap.

Until building catches up with population growth, migration will keep tightening rentals and supporting prices, most acutely in the mid-sized capitals and migration-favoured regions rather than in Sydney and Melbourne, where high prices and higher rates are already forcing a correction.