Canberra’s economy is booming… So why not invest here?

With the resident population of Canberra currently sitting at 375,000, and when combined with the surrounding region, growing to 800,000 people, Canberra is an innovative, accessible and educated Capital City. So why wouldn’t you invest here? Especially when you consider that population forecasts to 2050 highlight that the Capital region’s resident base will grow to more than a million people. That’s an additional 200,000 people that need homes, jobs and education.

We have one of the strongest and most secure economies in Australia. Up by 4% on a year ago, ahead of Victoria with 3.9% and NSW, 1.4%, we have the fastest annual economic growth rate in the nation. NSW is the strongest in terms of annual growth of real retail trade, up 4.1%, with the ACT next, up 4.0%.

We are best on housing finance and economic growth, showing that home buyers, investors, and the building and construction sector are confident about growth in the economy. Home values increased by 1.48% in October – which was the highest in Australia – with a 69% Auction clearance rate for the week ending 1st November – which was also the highest clearance rate in Australia.

In education we have the Australian National University featuring in the Top 50 universities in the world (second in Australia only to the University of Melbourne) which could explain our high orientation towards post-graduate (12%) and bachelor degrees (21%) compared with the nation (5% and 13% respectively).

This education level reflects in our low unemployment rate of below 5% for nearly a decade and labour force participation rates being consistently above 72%.

So again we ask, why wouldn’t you invest in Canberra?