Muval, Media Release, 29 April 2024
National online removalist booking platform Muval has joined forces with one of Australia’s leading population geographers to create an Australian-first real-time migration model which provides an instant ranking for Australian areas based on how many people are moving in and out.
Through an interactive graph, which can be broken down into capital cities or Australian statistical areas (SA4), MuveRank instantly shows the rank of local areas in relation to net migration, inbound migration and outbound migration over the past five years. Moving forward, MuveRank data will be released every quarter offering the most up-to-date statistical estimates on internal migration in Australia and the potential for short-term forecasts.
According to the 2023 MuveRank, the top 10 local areas for net migration were:
- Melbourne – Inner Vic
- Richmond – Tweed NSW
- Sunshine Coast Qld
- Perth – Inner WA
- Coffs Harbour – Grafton NSW
- Cairns Qld
- Mid North Coast NSW
- Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven NSW
- Melbourne – Inner East Vic
- Wide Bay Qld
Muval CEO James Morrell said MuveRank was a handy resource that offered a quick snapshot of movement in capital cities and local areas.
“We have long understood that our platform data had a wide range of valuable and tangible applications, and this Australian-first ranking enables us to see where Australians are moving now, providing leading signals on emerging population trends in cities, towns and regions. MuveRank is a simple snapshot of internal movement that has profound implications for so many people from policy makers to property investors. It has been incredible to work with a University of Queensland researcher on something of this scale and to put our moving data to use for the benefit of communities right around Australia,” James said.
Muval has also launched an interactive map of Australia shaded to reflect the percentage of the overall net migration an area is experiencing each year, providing an instant geographical visual of how much movement is occurring relative to other areas. The 2023 map shows popular sea change areas are hogging the lion’s share of movement, including the Sunshine Coast with a 7 per cent share of net migration flow in 2023, up from 4 per cent in 2019, and Richmond-Tweed with 6 per cent, down from 8 per cent in 2019. While the 2020 map shows the start of the coastal Covid flow and paints a picture of Melbourne’s pandemic exodus.
To create MuveRank, University of Queensland geographer Dr Elin Charles-Edwards collated information from Muval’s national removalist aggregation site, which collects origin to destination flow data for proposed moves providing approximate to actual migration behaviour and cross-checked the numbers with official statistics provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Census. The result is an Australian-first data machine that provides a real-time early indicator estimate of migration, months in advance of the ABS, according to Dr Charles-Edwards who led the project.
“With most removalist enquiries made around 30 days ahead of a move, Muval’s moving data offers a unique window into where Australians are planning to move at a metropolitan and regional level, so this real-time rank offers the chance to monitor the current flow of internal migration for the first time. With a couple of clicks we can see which cities and areas are losing or gaining residents in real time as well as the ups and downs each place has experienced over the past five years,” Elin said.
“Migration data is critical, but we have been stuck in a data deficit. This kind of timely data, presented in such a simple, accessible format, is what we have been missing. Before our analysis of Muval’s anonymised data, there wasn’t a way to get frequent, up-to-date estimates of where Australians were moving now. This important piece of the puzzle is vital for governments at every level to understand what is happening in their area to make better estimates and plan better for the future.
“Covid-19 was the largest disruption to Australian demography since World War 2 and while it was obvious that the pandemic would have a long-term impact on the size, composition and distribution of the population, we didn’t have access to timely data meaning we were always a step behind. The first phase of MuveRank was to correlate past moving trends and the next step is to use quarterly data to make short-term forecasts.
“Based on the first release of data, MuveRank shows that our cities are returning to normal after years of pandemic volatility, as well as some signals suggesting a peri-urban population shift to regional centres near a city such as the Tweed, Central Coast and Sunshine Coast. Historically, we tend to see a decline in internal migration during economic downturns and what we might be seeing is a new phase of trapped populations who are mortgage prisoners, or who are being forced out of unaffordable metropolitan areas but still need to be close enough for work commitments.”
For more information visit muval.com.au.
About Muval
Muval is a free platform that helps people find the best local and interstate removalists in Australia, compare their prices, and book online. Muval.com.au is one of the top ranked moving house platforms in Australia and provides an important service for those looking to save time and money when looking to move house.
