An academic says there are “winners and losers” stemming from Sydney’s property market driving the city’s key workers to live in areas such as the Illawarra.
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Teachers Mutual Bank this week released a report on the impact of Sydney’s housing affordability crisis on the city’s key workers.
The Key Worker Housing Affordability in Sydney study indicates that Sydney’s property market is pricing the city’s teachers, firefighters, nurses, police, ambulance drivers and paramedics out of metropolitan areas, resulting in some living hours away from their workplaces and commuting sizeable distances to work.
The report found that in the 10 years leading up to 2016, key areas in Sydney lost up to 20 per cent of teachers, nurses, policy and emergency service workers to outer and regional areas.
The study was undertaken by the University of Sydney’s Urban Housing Lab, led by Professor Nicole Gurran and Professor Peter Phibbs.
Prof Phibbs said the trend of Sydney workers relocating to live in areas such as the Illawarra was putting more pressure on the latter’s transport services and roads.
“This obviously means there’s more people commuting from those places back to Sydney for their jobs," he said.
“The bad side for someone commuting is there’s now extra people fighting for seats on the train.
“So unless they improve the transport services there will be extra competition in that space, and more cars on the roads.
“I think the upside is it's probably helping population growth in some of those areas who are getting a steady stream of almost housing migrants out of Sydney, who are taking advantage of the lifestyle and cheaper housing in the Illawarra.
“I suppose the downside is… People coming out of the Sydney market are probably more aggressive purchasers than perhaps some people who have grown up in the Illawarra.
“So that may be resulting in a bit of house price inflation out of Sydney.”
Prof Phibbs said these skilled workers living in the Illawarra could be a positive for the region, but have a detrimental effect elsewhere.
“I guess the upside for the Illawarra is, for example, if a good job comes up at Wollongong Hospital, a lot of times you'd prefer to take that local job and reduce your travel time,” he said.
“The downside for the state is there is a lot of pressure on the hospital systems in Sydney because of the population growth and some of the ageing population.
“It might be good for Wollongong Hospital, but the health system as a whole might suffer as you might have someone who is a specialist nurse in Sydney that takes the more general position in Wollongong, just as a way of reducing the travel.
“So there’s winners and losers.”