Andrew Stoddard flew halfway around the world chasing the Australian dream.
But 13 years later, he was forced to confront a difficult reality: he would have to leave the city he had come to love to afford the life he wanted to give his children.
After moving to Australia from the UK in 2010, Andrew settled in Bondi with his wife, Helen.
But when their family started to grow, the couple moved to Maroubra in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in 2021 because they weren’t going to be able to afford what they needed in terms of size in Bondi, Andrew told Yahoo News.
Andrew and Helen were keen to own their first home, but they still felt they were coming up short even after moving out of their “Bondi bubble”.
The 39-year-old said they could afford to rent a bigger property in Maroubra for about $900 a week, but “the quality of the property was pretty poor” — no thanks to leaks and giant ants eating away at the wooden framing.
“Even that to buy was about $2.6 million at that point,” he said.
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With a growing family, Andrew said he and his wife realised they weren’t going to be able to afford what they needed in Sydney.
“We didn’t want to be living in an apartment with kids. We had that dream of a proper back garden, but still being coastal,” he said.
“I wanted more space, I wanted a backyard. I wanted my kids to grow up with room to run around in their own home, and every year it felt like that dream was getting harder and harder to achieve.”
Family leaves Sydney to buy ‘dream’ home
Having done some work on the Central Coast and watching their friends trickle upstate, Andrew and his wife decided to pack up and move there as well.
On New Year’s Eve of 2023, the Stoddard family moved into the first home they had owned — a standalone North Gosford house with three bedrooms, a front and back garden, with plenty of room for the kids to play.
The couple bought the home for $900,000.
Andrew Stoddard is now a buyer’s agent on the NSW Central Coast after moving to North Gosford. Source: Andrew Stoddard
“The realisation that we would be able to achieve that dream property on the Central Coast was quite incredible.”
Andrew admits that moving over 90 kilometres away from Sydney was an “adjustment” and to leave Sydney, he had to shift his mindset leading up to the move.
“I felt that I was leaving more behind than I actually was,” he said.
“I left because the life that I wanted and the life that I could afford started moving further and further apart.”
Moving from the city was the best decision, family says
Moving to the Central Coast meant Andrew had more than an hour-and-a-half commute into Sydney. He now works on the coast as a property buyer’s agent but still commutes to Sydney regularly.
He finds the commute “manageable” since he lives a few minutes away from a train station.
Based on his move from Sydney to the Central Coast, Andrew said his family “gained more than we’d given up”.
“More space, more time, and putting our hard-earned money into a property that was ours,” he said.
For himself, his wife, five-year-old boy and two-year-old girl, Andrew said it was “one of the best decisions that we’ve made”.
For a fraction of the cost compared to Sydney housing prices, the Stoddard family moved into their home at North Gosford. Source: Andrew Stoddard
Do you have a story about moving from the city? Contact newsroomau@yahoonews.com
More Australians leaving capital cities than ever before
An index produced by the Commonwealth Bank and the Regional Australia Institute shows that in the latest quarter, Aussies moving to the regions outnumbered those moving in the opposite direction by 29.7 per cent. That represents nearly four city-to-region movers for every three going the other way.
The biggest outflows came from Sydney and Melbourne as the trend towards regional living hit a record peak in the March quarter.
“This is the highest level of capital to regional movement the RMI has ever recorded. Australians are continuing to choose regional life in greater numbers, even as economic conditions shift,” RAI CEO Liz Ritchie said.
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