I want to take you back to 26 March 2020.
Australia (and the world) was starting to get its head around the ‘Coronavirus’. On this day, Australia’s number one demographer Bernard Salt wrote about how Australia would see an explosion of population growth from overseas migration once the pandemic had passed.
It turns out he was right.
Before the pandemic, Australia’s population was growing by 375,000 people per annum, with roughly two thirds of that population growth coming from overseas migrants. The balance comes from an excess of births over deaths, called ‘natural increase’.
During 2020, 2021 and the majority of 2022, with international borders closed, there was no overseas migration. Australia’s population growth was limited to its natural increase.
Yet in the first two months of 2023, Australia has welcomed 115,000 net overseas migrants.
That’s nearly half the number we would usually welcome in a full year, in just two months!
It’s lead to the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation forecasting that 650,000 extra migrants will come to Australia this year and the next. The Corporation forecast the Australia population will grow by a total of 900,000 in those two years.
The significant population growth in our country has been forecast for some time. Bernard Salt wrote that Australia, being a remote country with one of the best health, welfare and lifestyle offerings in the world, would be a very attractive and in demand place to live post-pandemic.
We are now seeing that.
This would be music to our government’s ears, too. Although it represents a challenge when it comes to housing supply, we are a country that needs and depends on population growth from overseas migrants.
We have an ageing population, meaning each day there are fewer and fewer workers for every Australian who relies on one of the world’s best (and expensive) healthcare and welfare systems.
Bringing in overseas migrants – who are typically aged between 20 and 40 – means balancing out the demographic ledger when it comes to the worker to retiree ratio.
It’s why land in fast-growing areas in capital cities is the safest and best performing asset you can invest in.
They can’t make any more land.
As the population grows, so too will the value of that land.
It was one of the first bulletproof tips in my book for a reason.
Sometimes investing can be overcomplicated. Whether an asset will grow in value or not is a simple equation of supply versus demand.
You can read my book and the rest of my Bulletproof tips by buying it here or listening to it on Audible here.
