Gold Coast suburb of Pimpama named as top housing hotspot in Australia

Much has been made of property prices rising in Sydney and Melbourne but Australia’s top housing hotspot has been revealed as Pimpama in Queensland.

The suburb in the northern part of the city of Gold Coast is just 30 miles from Brisbane and has already been described by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as the nation’s fastest growing area.

Now it tips the population and residential hotspot ranking from the Housing Industry Association (HIA) which also shows that overall regional Australia is peppered with housing hotspots.

In second place was Cobbitty Leppington in Sydney with Palmerston South in the Northern Territory in third place with Riverstone in Marsden Park, New South Wales, in fourth and the suburbs of Forrestdale, Harrisdale and Piara Waters in Western Australia in fifth.

‘With 2016 representing a record year for new home building activity across Australia, the housing industry has been supporting economic activity in localities up and down the country,’ said Shane Garrett, HIA senior economist.

‘The good news on housing is not confined to the major capital cities as the report shows that regional Australia is also peppered with housing hotspots and identifies 86 separate areas in every state and territory across Australia where residential building activity is acting as the engine of economic activity, employment and development,’ he pointed out.

Overall nine of the top 20 hotspots are located in New South Wales and the same number in ACT, five are in South Australia and in Tasmania, four are in Victoria, three in Queensland, two in Western Australia and two in the Northern Territory.

Nationally, an area qualifies as a hotspot if its population grew by more than the 1.4% national average during 2015/2016 and at least $150 million worth of residential building was approved during the year.