Over the past year a surprising trend has seen an exodus of sorts of people abandoning city life for the lifestyle goals of regional areas and we have seen this demand evident in the Maitland and surrounding regions! The increased capacity to work remotely, along with a drive for an overall better quality of life, has meant rents in some of Australia’s most unexpected areas have soared. In most cases, the areas chosen are far away enough to be ‘out of town’ yet close enough to still be accessible to the office and the city life as needed. Subsequently rents locally here in Maitland have seen a movement north and the likes of Victor Harbour (around 1 hour from Adelaide), and the Yass Valley (1 hour from Canberra) have seen the biggest rises with rent increasing in these areas by up to a third of their pre-2020 value. Other more remote locations have also experienced a spike too – Port Hedland in WA’s remote north west has seen a rise of around 23%, while another resource rich area - Queensland’s Isaac region (situated between Mackay and Longreach) saw rents increase by more than 20% in the last year alone. In Victoria rents rose in the far west of the state and the alpine region by 15 -20% respectively. The novelty never wears off coastal destinations of course and this is evidenced by a jump in rents in places like NSW’s Richmond Valley (14.3 % increase) and Eurobodalla (12.8% increase), Victoria’s Moyne region, a few hours west of Melbourne (around 12% increase) and Whyalla on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula (17.4%).