Port Pirie in South Australia has won the title as the most in-demand country address in Australia.
Port Pirie, once shunned as host to one of the world's biggest lead smelters, recorded a staggering four-fold rise in new arrivals last year.
Growth in the Spencer Gulf town was driven overwhelming by people coming from other regions.
Murray Bridge came in third in the region-to-region flow in this latest look at the continuing movement of people from city to country being experienced around the nation.
Mount Gambier is also a strong performer in the "popularity" stakes of those moving from city to country.
Albany in Western Australia topped the list of the regional local government areas experiencing the greatest growth in net migration inflows from capital cities.
Gladstone in Queensland experienced a four-fold rise and Mount Gambier came in third on the national list with a three-fold rise.
Thirteen regional local government areas around the country recorded a jump in net internal migration levels of more than 100 per cent through 2022.
Regional Queensland and Victoria snared the largest share of movers, according to the December quarter Regional Movers Index.
The top five highest growth regional areas were Port Pirie, Gladstone (Queensland), Murray Bridge, Glen Innes (NSW) and York (Western Australia) which all recorded a jump of more than 200pc in 2022.
Net internal migration measures the number of people from outside of the region (but still within Australia) moving in, less the number of local people moving away.
Regional Australia Institute chief executive Liz Ritchie said the impact of capital city movers to the regions is now having a flow on effect to other regional places, many of which have historically seen limited population growth.
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"The areas experiencing significant net migration increases would certainly be feeling the impact on house prices and rents, local services and infrastructure.
"For that reason, policy makers, industry and regional leaders need to heed these results, to ensure adequate planning and resourcing is put in place to accommodate demand both now and in coming decades," Ms Ritchie said.
The Regional Australia Institute and the Commonwealth Bank have been charting the COVID-induced rush of city people escaping to the country.
Those numbers have slowed in many areas over the past year, which many have blamed in the lack of available housing to buy and rent in the country.
The report found capital to regional migration remained elevated throughout 2022, tracking at a level virtually unchanged from the height of the pandemic and around 16pc higher than the pre-COVID levels of 2018 and 2019.
The migration flows in the other direction - from regions back to capitals - continue to pick up from those reduced flows of 2020 and 2021.
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Ms Ritchie said in the early days of COVID, the high growth areas were generally high amenity locations like the Surf Coast, Byron Bay and Noosa.
These latest numbers show regional people are also on move, many for other inland centres or coastal towns.
Port Pirie's elevation to the "most popular" ranking might surprise some.
But local real estate agents say they have been inundated with applicants as demand for properties far exceeds the supply.
"We have seen a huge amount of investors hitting the market and there are really good returns so we have a lot of interstate buyers and first home buyers," Lavis Real Estate joint manager and director Brodie Lavis said.
The CBA and Regional Australia Institute team up to produce the Regional Movers Index which analyses the quarterly and annual trends in people moving to and from Australia's regional areas.
The top five most popular destinations for both metropolitan and regional movers were Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Greater Geelong, Fraser Coast and Bundaberg.
"The regional housing squeeze is just one example of what can happen when we haven't prepared for growth. The low growth 'business as usual' trends before 2020 has led to underinvestment in some regional areas," Ms Ritchie said.
The top 10 most popular destinations for regional-to-regional movers were Bundaberg, Fraser Coast, Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast, Maitland, Townsville, Gympie, Cairns, Gladstone and Ballarat.
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Chris McLennan
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
