Central Coast Council
Economic & Socio-Economic Data Updates
Compiled: 27.05.26
Contents
1. Social Housing data (6 May 2026)
2. STRA data updates (6 May 2026)
3. New Vehicle Registrations (7 May 2026)
4. Property Market data (8 May 2026)
5. DA assessment data (April 2026) (11 May 2026)
6. Commuting data updates (Central Coast line, M1, Parking) (11 May 2026)
7. Building Approvals (11 May 2026)
8. Residential Rental Market (13 May 2026)
9. DSS Benefit Recipient data (18 May 2026)
10. Retail Spend data updates (April 2026) (18 May 2026)
11. Economic data updates (Jobseeker, Job Vacancies, Unemployment Rate) (27 May 2026)
1. Social Housing data
Date sent: 6 May 2026 | Subject: Social Housing data
I just received the latest social housing data from FACS/DCJ, so I've
updated the dashboard:
The main trend I've noticed is a gradual decrease in the amount of public
housing available, which is being offset by an increase in community
housing. The overall amount of social housing has been relatively flat over
the past 3 years.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/AffordableHousingIndicators/SocialHousing
2. STRA data updates
Date sent: 6 May 2026 | Subject: STRA data updates
I've just updated the STRA data and dashboards (Airbnb/Booking.com/Stayz)
to add in the latest (April) daily and monthly data.
At the daily level, it's interesting to notice that while bookings and
occupancy rates are trending down, the average daily rate (ADR) has been
increasing significantly since Aug 2025
I compared against monthly interest rates, and those only started
increasing in 2026 (in fact, there was one more rate cut after Aug 2025),
so there must be other factors in play to explain this recent trend. I will
investigate further.
At the monthly level, the increase in ADR over recent months can also be
clearly seen. Suburbs showing the highest ADR include Killcare/Killcare
Heights, Copacabana/MacMasters Beach, Pearl Beach and North Avoca. From a
Gross Revenue perspective, the top 3 suburbs, both for April and for the
last 12 months, are Terrigal, Avoca Beach and Copacabana.
Year over Year, most suburbs were down in April for occupancy rate:
It's also interesting to see how closely Gross Revenue follows Occupancy
Rate. While that's intuitively obvious, it does serve to show how much
Gross Revenue could increase if occupancy rates could be improved.
At the LGA level, this can be seen clearly by comparing Central Coast with
other LGAs:
It seems that the Central Coast STRA market is being supported by higher
ADR, rather than by increased tourism, as measured by occupancy rates.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/CentralCoastTourism-HotelShortTermRentalOccupancy/ShortTermRentalsRevenue
3. New Vehicle Registrations
Date sent: 7 May 2026 | Subject: New Vehicle Registrations
TfNSW finally updated the new vehicle registrations data, to add the data
for March and April.
I expected some transition towards EVs as a result of recent petrol price
increases, but I wasn't expecting it to be this significant:
For the Central Coast, sales of EV/PHEV vehicles hit 50% of total new
vehicle sales in April. The long term trend was looking like the 50/50
split between Petrol/Diesel and EVs would be achieved within about 18
months, but the Iran War has brought that forward significantly.
This will potentially put pressure on EV charging infrastructure, and make
it more important to start seeing chargers installed in car parks, service
stations etc. Council should probably be planning for chargers in Gosford
and Terrigal car parks, at a minimum.
Looking at the trend in total monthly new vehicle registrations for the
Central Coast, we can see that March 2026 was up significantly over March
2025, then April 2026 was on a par with April 2025. Comparing against other
LGAs in NSW, Central Coast moved up to 3rd in terms of total new vehicle
registrations in the month, behind just Parramatta and Blacktown.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/NewVehicleRegistrationsNSW/TransitiontoEVs
4. Property Market data
Date sent: 8 May 2026 | Subject: Property Market data
I've just updated the property market data to add in the April 2026 data.
Overall, median house prices by suburb have continued to increase,
particularly in the lower priced suburbs. 4 suburbs joined the "$1M median
house price" club: Gosford, Berkeley Vale, Springfield, and Woongarrah.
Conversely, Niagara Park fell back below $1M median house price. A few
suburbs saw a month over month decrease in median house prices, including
Copacabana, Kariong, MacMasters Beach, East Gosford, Niagara Park, Tumbi
Umbi and Blue Bay. Most suburbs now appear to have some units listed for
sale, with notable exceptions being Bensville, Koolewong and Woongarrah.
The hottest suburbs in terms of interested buyers are Terrigal, Wamberal,
Umina Beach, Berkeley Vale and Bateau Bay.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/RentalHousingAffordability-CentralCoastNSW/PropertyMarket
5. DA assessment data (April 2026)
Date sent: 11 May 2026 | Subject: DA assessment data (April 2026)
(Council Scorecard), to add the April 2026 data.
Overall, average assessment days for all DA (residential + commercial) has
increased to 140 days (35 days worse than expected):
In contrast, Lake Macquarie LGA is performing 5 days better than expected
(average assessment days 99), and Newcastle LGA 15 days better than
expected (average assessment days 63).
For Residential DAs (Fiscal YTD), Central Coast is averaging 136 assessment
days (31 days worse than expected), with only 55% of the 655 applications
assessed meeting expectations.
For Commercial DAs (Fiscal YTD), Central Coast is averaging 144 assessment
days (39 days worse than expected), with 60% of the 607 applications
assessed meeting expectations.
To put this into context, if a business applied for a commercial DA to
expand operations on the Central Coast, it would take, on average, 80 days
longer to be assessed than a commercial DA in Newcastle LGA.
Note that the NSW Planning Portal definition of Average assessment days is:
*"Total calendar days between lodgement date and determination date of all
development applications determined, divided by the total number of
development applications determined within the selected time period.
Calendar days include weekends and public holidays."*
If we add in the average lodgement days (14 days for Central Coast, 6 days
for Newcastle), then it takes, on average 158 days from submission date to
DA approval on the Central Coast, which is 88 days (just under 3 months)
longer than the same application would take in Newcastle.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/ePlanningPortal-LGABenchmarking_17427023693080/CommercialDABenchmark
6. Commuting data updates (Central Coast line, M1, Parking)
Date sent: 11 May 2026 | Subject: Commuting data updates (Central Coast line, M1, Parking)
I've just updated the Opal card data from TfNSW to include March 2026 data.
Looking at the entries (tap ons) at the main train stations on the Central
Coast (Gosford, Woy Woy, Tuggerah and Wyong), there was a significant
increase in March across all stations:
Note that this data does not segment the Opal card Tap Ons by type (Adult,
student etc), but looking at total Tap ons for the Central Coast/Newcastle
line by month, we can focus on just Adult card types (proxy for commuters):
Here we can als see the increase in March, which equates to 6% year over
year.
While the total volume of train travellers on the Central Coast/Newcastle
line is still nowhere near pre-COVID levels, it's interesting to see that
Gosford commuter car park usage has increased, and this car park (which has
space for over 1,000 vehicles) is typically full
Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Thurdays, around 60-70% full on Fridays and 80-95% full
on Mondays. This suggests an increase in 'return to work' (commuting to
Sydney rather than working from home) but not 5 days per week as it was
before COVID:
Interestingly the Gosford Council car park is still not full as it was
before COVID, but this may be due to the significant price increases
(prices have more than doubled, causing several local businesses eg Ray
White to cancel their permanent parkings spaces).
The M1 data (traffic counted at Mount White) continues to increase, as
shown by this view of Northbound traffic (light vehicles):, with an
increasing trend in particular since Aug 2025:
Interestingly, looking at the Northbound afternoon peak by day of week, the
Tue-Thu afternoon peak appears to be between 3-6pm, whereas the Friday peak
is between 1-8pm. This likely ties in with tourism, which is primarly
weekend STRA-based.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/GosfordCarParkUsage/DailyTrainStationEntriesExits
7. Building Approvals
Date sent: 11 May 2026 | Subject: Building Approvals
I've just finished updating the latest (March) building approvals data from
ABS, which includes LGA and SA2 level building approvals, as well as
quarterly demolitions.
At the suburb level, for the last 12 months, the majority of the building
approvals were in Warnervale, Gosford, The Entrance, Gwandalan, Umina and
Lake Munmorah.
The time-series trend is interesting, because it shows a significant
increase in approval for houses in March:
Aggregating to the Financial Year level, approvals for houses look set to
exceed FY24-25, and approvals for townhouses have already exceeded prior
year. Approvals for units/apartments in FY25-26 are disappointing however:
This will have an impact, as apartments tend to be much more affordable.
The trend in quarterly total demolitions appears to fluctuate, but overall
appears to be trending slowly up:
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/ResidentialBuildingApprovalsLGAlevel_15947800026170/BuildingApprovalsTrend
8. Residential Rental Market
Date sent: 13 May 2026 | Subject: Residential Rental Market
I've just updated the datasets and dashboards to add in the April data for
residential vacancies/rates and weekly asking rents.
1. *Residential Vacancies* - the total number of residential vacancies
increased in April to 402 (from 362 in March). This change was not
consistent across all postcodes in the LGA, however, with 2251, 2261 and
2262 showing a decrease month over month:
All postcodes are still well below the 'market equilibrium' level of 3%.
As an aside, I created a quick comparison of these long term residential
vacancies against STRA (specifically Airbnbs). It's interesting to note
that, since COVID, residential vacancy rates peaked at 721 in June 2023,
and have since fallen by over 300 vacancies. In that time, Airbnb
properties (active supply) peaked at 3,100 properties in Jan 2024, and have
dropped to 2,560 in Apr 2026 (a decrease of around 540 properties).
2. *Weekly Asking Rents* - rents have continued to climb across most
postcodes, with only 2262 and 2263 having average weekly rents for houses
below $700 per week:
The most expensive postcode to rent houses remains 2260 ($916/week)
followed by 2251 ($897/week) and 2261 ($808/week).
For apartments/units, the trend is similar, with average weekly rents
ranging from $763/week (2260) to $523/week (2262)
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/RentalHousingAffordability-CentralCoastNSW/PropertyMarket
9. DSS Benefit Recipient data
Date sent: 18 May 2026 | Subject: DSS Benefit Recipient data
I've just updated the DSS Social Security Benefit Recipients data, to add
in Q1 2026.
The number of Age Pension recipients increased by 70 to 49,360, with the
largest number being in the Umina/Ettalong area. The highest proportion of
recipients is in the Lake Munmorah area (24.5%). As can be seen from the
sparkline in the above dashboard, the number of recipients has been
increasing since Q1 2024.
There are also now 81,775 Pension Concession Card holders on the Central
Coast:
This is up by 165 since Dec 2025. The total number of recipients of this
benefit has been increasing since Q2 2023.
At the LGA level, Central Coast still has the highest total number of Age
Pension recipients of any LGA in NSW, but not the highest proportion:
(14.1%, compared to 22.1% for the Mid-Coast LGA)
Comparing the Central Coast employment participation rate for Mar 2026
against selected benefit types, it can be seen that the proportion of Age
Pension recipients correlates closely with the Participation rate, i.e. it
is as expected, when compared against other LGAs:
However, as can be seen above, the Participation Rate is lower than should
be expected based on the rate of Jobseekers and Disability Support
recipients.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/EconomicandSocio-EconomicSummary-CentralCoast/ParticipationRateAnalysis
10. Retail Spend data updates (April 2026)
Date sent: 18 May 2026 | Subject: Retail Spend data updates (April 2026)
I've updated the retail spend data and dashboards, to include the data for
April 2026.
From a trend perspective, April 2026 showed a significant increase both
month over month and year over year tourism season, for total retail spend
spend (discretionary categories such as
cafes/restaurants/pubs/bars/takeaways). This was particularly noticeable in
Terrigal:
which suggests that both visitor and resident spend was strong over the
Easter period.
Looking at weekend spend for the same retail categories as above, both
resident spend appears to be below the long term trend for April, however
visitor spend appears to have picked up:
In terms of suburbs on the Coast, Terrigal remains by far the biggest in
terms of total night-time spend (cafes/restaurants/takeaways), followed by
Umina/Ettalong and Gosford:
Commuter spend (spend by Central Coast residents in Sydney) showed a shift
towards takeaway/fast food, which aligns with the commuter data which
showed an increase in commuting particularly Tue-Thur:
Interestingly, commuter spend in Parramatta LGA increased in April, to be
above that of Hornsby and Northern Beaches. By comparison, in January,
spend on the Northern Beaches was the 2nd highest after Sydney CBD.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/RetailSpend/NightTimeEconomy
11. Economic data updates (Jobseeker, Job Vacancies, Unemployment Rate)
Date sent: 27 May 2026 | Subject: Economic data updates (Jobseeker, Job Vacancies, Unemployment Rate)
I've just finishing updating the economic data to include Apr 2026. The
Labour Force data was a bit more work than usual, as ABS discontinued all
the existing Labour Force Survey datasets and replaced them with a new
one... (fortunately a contact at ABS gave me the calculations so I could
reproduce all the indicators)
1. *Overview*: overall trends are that unemployment is increasing, job
vacancies are decreasing, and jobseeker repicients are increasing slowly.
2. *Jobseeker Recipients*: The number of jobseeker benefit recipients in
April was the same as in March (12,550), although there were some changes
at the suburb level:
For example, Warnervale/Wadalba and Budgewoi each saw an increase of 15
Jobseekers over the prior month.
3. *Labour Force Unemployment: *The unemployment rate dropped slightly to
4.8% in April, from 5.0% in March.
The participation rate remained at 61%, which is lower than most regions in
NSW:
The unemployment rate of 4.8% in April is lower than regions in Western
Sydney and The Hunter, but higher than regions such as Lake
Macquarie/Newcastle.
Youth unemployment in Apr 2026 remains at 12.9%, which is 4.0% higher than
it was in Apr 2025:
The total number of unemployed in the age 15-24 range appears to have
jumped in 2026, up to early 2021 levels.
4. Job Vacancies: Job vacancies fell to 1,480 in April, from 1,600 in March
(a decrease of 120 jobs).
This is down just under 1,000 jobs from the peak of 2,441 in Oct 2022. This
decrease was across most occupations:
Notably, medical, health and welfare job ads appear be holding up well, but
clerical, admin and community job ads appear to be decreasing.
Dashboard Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/central.coast.council/viz/EconomicandSocio-EconomicSummary-CentralCoast/CentralCoastEconomicTrends