Darwin house prices second highest in Australia

If something isn’t done to bring housing prices down in Northern Australia, the region will never be able to reach its full potential.

Figures recently released by the Australian Property Monitors showed that Darwin was the second most expensive capital city in Australia, with only the Sydney market more expensive.
The situation in Darwin is similar to many other major northern centres, where prices continue to remain artificially high. This is particularly evident in mining towns, which are being affected by an increasing amount of fly-in, fly-out workers. In many cases this forces local renters to leave town to find more affordable housing.
This will only get worse as FIFO workers begin to take up more accommodation in Darwin as the $34 billion INPEX gas project really takes off.
These high prices also have the negative affect of discouraging permanent internal migration from the south eastern states.
The worst part of this is that these high prices are being caused by government policies. Slow release of land and overly restrictive planning regulations are artificially restricting supply.
If growth in the north is going to continue, more crown land needs to be made available for residential development.