Good Life Guide

This is the median price of all dwellings traded in the respective LGA during the three months to March 2024 (the latest data available at the time of developing the Guide).

For some LGAs, a median price for the three months to March 2024 is unavailable – typically because too few homes were traded in that period to enable a robust median price. In those instances, the median price is taken as the median during the 12 months to March 2024. 

LGAs without either a three-month or 12-month median dwelling price have been excluded from the published results. 

This data is sourced from CoreLogic.

This is an RAI estimate of the annual median employee income within each LGA in the 2023-24 financial year. 

According to the ABS, employee income is an employee's total remuneration, whether monetary or in kind, received as a return to labour from an employer or from a person's own incorporated business. It comprises wages and salaries, bonuses, amounts salary sacrificed, non-cash benefits such as the use of motor vehicles and subsidised housing (where valued over a certain threshold), and termination payments. 

The most recent published ABS personal income data by LGA is for the 2020-21 financial year. 

To estimate median employee income for 2023-24, RAI has constructed and applied a growth factor to the 2020-21 data. The growth factor is calculated as the average rate of growth in ABS employee income over the four-year period from 2016-17 to 2020-2021. 

This is a commonly used measure of housing affordability that shows the ratio of the median dwelling price to the estimated median local income, drawn from the two measures above. The Price to income ratio allows comparison of housing affordability across LGAs. 

A high ratio indicates the LGA is less affordable (local prices are high relative to local incomes); while a low ratio indicates the LGA is more affordable (local prices are low relative to local incomes).  

This is the Hachman Index. It shows the diversity of the industry mix in the respective LGA relative to the industry mix for Australia as a whole.

It is calculated using Employment by Industry data from the 2021 Census.

The Index is essentially calculated by dividing the share of an industry’s employment in a region into the share of employment in that industry in the national economy. 

Overall, an index value of 1 indicates that the industrial structure of an LGA is identical to that of Australia as a whole, while values closer to 0 indicate extreme specialisation in the LGA. 

The distances for coastal access and National Park access were calculated through geographical information systems (GIS) mapping, showing the distance (km) from the population-weighted centre of the respective LGA to the nearest coastline and the nearest National Park/reserve. 

The RAI uses a typology framework to describe different regions across Australia. The framework recognises that socio-economic experiences vary according to location in relation to characteristics like population size, economic fundamentals and proximity to regional centres or capital cities. There are four distinct regional typologies outside of the metropolitan areas. RAI defines the region types as:

Metropolitan – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra.

Regional city – Population of 50,000 people and diverse local economies.

Connected lifestyle region – regions located close to major metro areas and without the population size of cites.

Industry and service hub – populations of 15,000 or more, located further from major metro areas.

Heartland region – smaller regional areas, isolated from major metro areas.

We have prepared a list showing which LGAs are assigned to different RAI and ABS regional classifications that you can download below. 

Correspondence of LGAs to RAI and ABS classifications

If you’re interested in regional living and housing affordability, click on the ‘I’m interested in regional living’ button and you’ll be taken to that dashboard.

1. Select the state and LGA you are interested in (you can select more than one). 
2. Select which metric – out of median home price, median income or price to income ratio – you would like to see mapped. 
3. Select a value range for your selected metric to see which LGAs fall into that range, and where they are located.

The table at the bottom of the dashboard allows you to sort and compare the LGAs for your filtered regions across each of the listed metrics. 

If you’re interested in regional development, click on the ‘I’m interested in regional development’ button and you’ll be taken to that dashboard.

1. Select which state, LGA and/or region type you are interested in (you can select more than one). 
2. Select which metric – out of median home price, median income, price to income ratio or diversification index – you would like to see mapped.
3. Select a value range to see which LGAs fall into that range (for your selected metric) and where they are located. 

The table at the bottom of the dashboard allows you to sort and compare the LGAs for your filtered regions across each of the listed metrics. 

Hold down the control key ahead of (and while) you click on each of the LGAs/states/region types you’d like to be shown on the map. For mac users, hold down the command key. 

Some LGAs – particularly those with very small populations – have little or no data available, particularly house price data. The LGAs with no recorded median house price for either the three months or 12 months to March 2024 have been excluded from the Good Life Guide. A total of 65 LGAs and 5 unincorporated areas are excluded due to unavailable data.

The house price data in the Good Life Guide is valid to March 2024. This was the most current data at the time of website development (July 2024). The Guide aims to provide users with a snapshot comparison of LGAs across the country at a given point in time. RAI will update the data in the Good Life Guide annually.

This dashboard focuses on a select group of liveability metrics – housing prices, housing affordability, local incomes, economic diversity and coastal and National Park access. 
The RAI has built a broader understanding of liveability based on what people in regions have said matters to them and what people considering a move to regional Australia are looking for.  Key common indicators of liveability in regions include:

Health Services

Education Services

Cost of Living

Amenity

Connection to Community

Lifestyle and Opportunity

 

You can find analysis on other key liveability metrics in our report library, including the Liveability Toolkit and annual Regionalisation Ambition Progress Report.