It has been billed as Australia’s most resilient residential market, with developers and investment piling in and the nation’s seventh biggest city welcoming a record number of citizens this year.

But Newcastle’s boom has nothing to do with its long association with coal mining. It’s all about population growth, according to Ray White’s head of commercial research, Vanessa Rader. 

“The housing affordability of the region has not gone unnoticed as well as the lifestyle benefits and access still to Sydney,” Rader says.