Demand high for houseboat community as work-from-home lifestyle grows
LONDON: Boomers are driving the high demand for houseboats as they choose to continue work and combine it with a stay-at-home lifestyle.
John McIntyre is hard at work while birdsong rings out across the river red gum forest and fish splash around in the Murray River.
He works an office job, handling complaints for a major energy retailer.
But he undertakes the work remotely from his houseboat moored a 15-minute drive just off the Murray River in Victorian waters near Mildura.
“It’s no different from working from home anywhere else,” Mr McIntyre said.
“I’ve got the kitchen there, got the fridge there.”
His company only requires him to be in the office for two meetings per year.
“Not bad,” Mr McIntyre said.
“I went down in December [last year].”
Mr McIntyre relies on having a strong internet connection for his work, which means he uses a satellite system.
“Over the past three years, I lost it for 15 minutes one day,” he said.
“The next satellite came across and I was OK.”
There are about 40 spots at the Bruce’s Bend marina, for which the site’s private owners charge between $300 to $500 per month in mooring fees.
The marina is full and, according to management, another 18 people are on the waiting list.
The vacancy rate for rentals in Mildura, which is comprised of about 25,000 homes, is below 1 per cent.
In addition, rents in Mildura have increased by more than 11 per cent within the past 12 months.
Bruce’s Bend managers said they were in the process of creating an extra 16 berths.
Mr McIntyre said he had been travelling around while on the waiting list and happened to be moored nearby when the owners told him he would be granted a spot.
“I was pretty lucky,” he said.
“August this year will be three years, so it’s been good.”
Mr McIntyre said it was a great home and friends and family loved visiting as well.
“It’s a really good holiday because we took the boat and went for a drive down the river,” he said.
According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than 29,000 houseboats and cabins were counted across Australia in the 2021 census, a near 12-per cent increase from 2016.
In New South Wales’ jurisdiction, however, the law does not allow people to live on houseboats permanently.
RMIT University senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation, Julian Waters-Lynch, has researched trends for employees who have moved to regional and remote parts of Australia.
Dr Waters-Lynch said about 10 per cent of the Australian workforce was working completely remote.
“They tend to be in two classes,” he said.
“They are either high-end knowledge workers, people that work in software design, or coding or design.
“Or these kinds of admin work: IT support, payroll, other admin functions.”
A 2022 report authored by Dr Waters-Lynch found that employees with fully remote working arrangements could consider a much wider geographical area and were less dependent on regional public transport.
Dr Waters-Lynch said there were companies that encouraged fully remote work, including tech companies Atlassian and Automattic.
“Their argument is if you’re fully remote [then] you don’t have to pay for any real estate costs, which is significant,” he said.
He said, productively, it helped them as well for two main reasons.
“They are not limited to simply hiring in the geographic area that [the company] is based. They can hire anyone anywhere in the world,” Dr Waters-Lynch said.
“The second reason is they can structure their workforce to be working following the different time zones.
“You can design like a sort of 24/7 organisation.”
