Forget video killing the radio star—let’s talk about holiday homes killing the holiday.

Almost two years of closed international borders and remote working conditions has impacted both Australia’s property market and Australians’ definition of a holiday home in unexpected ways.

As a nation of travel enthusiasts, our inability to holiday outside of Australia until recently (and let’s be real, even outside of our state) has been a tough pill to swallow. But we have made the best of a bad situation, exploring our own backyard with a newfound sense of curiosity and wonder.

Yes, we mean that in a more figurative sense, but it’s also true that most of us began exploring our own backyards quite literally during lockdown. For instance, I found a thriving bee colony near an unused barbeque to the left of the fence, while my neighbours seemingly discovered the space for a ping pong table, subsequently producing the lockdown soundtrack absolutely nobody asked for.

Alas, trips to remote regional areas have replaced our overseas and interstate holidays, with holiday rentals and homes replacing international hotels and accommodation. Seeking refuge from the monotony of home life in the city or suburbs, holiday home-owners have taken up residence in their retreats, while others have leveraged Australia’s burgeoning home-sharing market to rent a holiday home to live and work from for the duration of pandemic restrictions.

This has caused rental prices in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs and inner-city suburbs to dip, while rents soar in areas like Byron Bay, proving rental affordability improves significantly in the absence of Airbnb. In the fourth quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021, Airbnb’s share of the rental market in Bondi dropped from 32.1% pre-COVID to 25.7%, with rents following suit. In Byron Bay, where Airbnb properties increased, rents jumped over 30%.

In December 2020, the number of vacant properties nationally was 54,000, and by December 2021 that number had fallen to 37,000. Data from CoreLogic shows house prices in Australia’s most loved tourism hotspots soared in 2021. In tourist-friendly areas like Kiama (up 31%), Snowy Monaro (up 30%), and Byron Bay (39%), the line between a second home and home has become more blurred as remote working conditions become the norm. Pre-covid (#tbt to golden days), the term ‘workcation’ likely would have repulsed us, but now we embrace it with open arms. As more city dwellers opt for a lifestyle change, regional property prices continue to climb, too. For instance, in the Central West, suburbs like Orange, Bathurst and Dubbo are experiencing their highest median house price growth in 16 years. Property investors are increasingly looking to ride this wave and also use the properties themselves. According to a report conducted by ING, the key motivators for investing in holiday towns include value for money (50%), the ability to use the property as a personal holiday home (28%) and taking advantage of the burgeoning holiday home rental market (25%).

According to Airbnb data, 23% of people working from home became ‘digital nomads’ within the first six months of the pandemic. And according to data in two recent reports, The 2022 McGrath Report and Bondi to Byron: The diverging experience of rental and home-buyer markets in urban and regional NSW, business is booming for Airbnb and Stayz as they cater to this new breed of holiday home renter looking for longer-term accommodation in more regional areas of the state.

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