Millennials ditching the Big Smoke for the regions

Friday, 26 October 2018

Natalie Murr, 29, has been able to buy a house after moving to Timaru from Auckland. She says it would've been a lot harder to do this in Auckland.

It's traditionally been perceived as an attractive place for young Kiwis seeking career opportunities and a vibrant lifestyle to settle. But as the cost of living in Auckland soars, an increasing number of young adults are ditching the super city for the regions.

In fact, despite Auckland's millennial population growing due to high levels of international migration, it's been losing thousands of young people to smaller cities and towns across New Zealand annually since 2015.

Last year, 20,964 movements out of Auckland to the regions were recorded for people aged 15 to 39, compared to 17,949 movements into the city from other parts of the country, new Statistics NZ data revealed.

For Auckland-born Natalie Murr, 29, a job offer and the prospect of buying her own home – a feat she wouldn't have been able to achieve in her hometown – prompted her and her husband Lee to leave the big smoke for Timaru in January 2017.

Young people are ditching Auckland for the regions in droves, new data reveals.

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'I'm sad that I can't afford a house in Auckland. If my husband and I could afford it we would live there in a heartbeat. But it's housing affordability – to me that's the biggest issue,' Murr, a media studies and English teacher at Roncalli College, said.

Last month's average house price in Auckland was $850,000, more than twice that of Timaru – $335,000 – according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand.

Murr said living in Timaru was affordable – even on a teacher's salary. Earlier this year she and 32-year-old Lee, a tradesman, purchased their first home and holidayed in Japan.

Although Murr missed her friends and family and Auckland's vibrancy and big events like concerts, living in Timaru had many benefits, she told Stuff.

ATEED chief executive Nick Hill says Auckland's loss of young talent to the regions is 'certainly something that we should be paying attention to'.

'I struggled at first with the quietness. I have found it hard to meet other people my age or in my stage of life.

'But apart from that, it's lovely. It's such an easy place to live. It's got everything you need. It's got the basic shops … a movie theatre … some nice restaurants and places to go out … a beautiful bay and beaches.'

Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis at the University of Waikato, said there had been a 'significant shift' in the net migration of Auckland's young people during the last four years.

The most striking difference was in the movements of 30 to 34-year-olds. Between 2009 and 2013, Auckland experienced a net gain of 2802 people in this age group from the regions, but from 2014 to 2017 had a net loss of 2316 to other parts of New Zealand.

'We would normally expect to see those in their 20s and early 30s to be arriving into the big city for education, work and the excitement the city offers but the data suggests a substantial turn around in this pattern,' Collins said.

Jennie Mirbach moved from Auckland from the Bay of Islands in 1974 as a 15 year old. The city of the sails was the place to be then.

A Neighbourly poll revealed this week that more than 60 per cent of the people who left Auckland were younger than 40.

Statistics NZ senior demographer Kim Dunstan said Auckland had lost more people to other regions since the mid-1990s than it gained from them. But those it lost were mostly older workers or retirees (aged 50+), Dunstan said.

Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) chief executive Nick Hill said Auckland's loss of young talent to the regions was 'certainly something that we should be paying attention to'.

To keep young people in Auckland in the future – and attract them there – the city would need to 'create opportunity that doesn't exist elsewhere', he said.

ATEED was doing this by working with employers and training organisations to improve the quality of jobs available and supporting the redevelopment of the city centre.

How times have changed

When Jennie Mirbach was growing up, Auckland was the place to be for a young Kiwi. So she left her hometown like thousands of other Kiwis and moved there in 1974:

In my era, you had to come to Auckland. There wasn't a job anywhere else.

I was born in Kaikohe and from the age of about 9, I lived in Paihia in the Bay of Islands.

I came to Auckland at 15 to go to ATI to do a secretarial course. I didn't do that in the end, I went back to school and did my sixth form year and then I went to secretarial college.

My best friend, she came down to go to varsity. That's really how it went - if you went to university then you had to come down to Auckland.

Everyone wanted to go to Queen Street – that was a big place. All the big companies they would have a big balls every year. They were always black tie, ball gown evenings.

You didn't have the traffic at all, not like it is now. You used to go on the motorway and you didn't get held up in traffic.

It was a lot easier to buy a house. My husband and I purchased a house when I was 18 for $30,000. The deposit was $3000 which my brother lent to me. You didn't earn a lot of money but it was much easier in those days.

We all were buying houses.