Tamworth houses are more expensive than ever, so why is demand still high?

During the State of the City leaders forum last week, PRD Tamworth's licensee in charge Mark Sleiman provided an inside look into the local housing market.

"If people don't have the money to go out and spend, they won't have the money to invest, and we're seeing a reflection of that in the real estate market," Mr Sleiman said.

Fewer local buyers would normally mean prices coming down, or at least growing more slowly.

But as buyers continue getting priced out of housing markets in Sydney and along the coast, demand for Tamworth's comparatively-low prices continues to climb.

"Up-sizers and down-sizers, people moving to town, and people leaving town are buying and selling, but we aren't getting the local mums and dads investing," Mr Sleiman said.

He said the end result, despite a free-fall in prices last year, was that the median house price in Tamworth continued to "rocket" up.

"I actually have never seen prices bounce back that aggressively in my 15 years in real estate," he said.

Mr Sleiman's insight is consistent with the latest data from appraisal company PropTrack, which shows home prices in the New England and North West have jumped more than 54 per cent in the last four years.

The dynamic was summed up by Tamworth Business Chamber president Matthew Sweeney, who also spoke at the forum.

"Here in Tamworth we're lucky enough to only have 11 per cent of our population [in mortgage stress] compared to NSW as a whole where more than 17 per cent struggle on their mortgage," Mr Sweeney said.

Despite unprecedented price increases, Tamworth is still considered one of PRD's "Roaring Regions," or Top 10 Affordable Regional Areas, for 2024.

About one-third [30pc] of houses on the local market fall under into the company's "low-end" price category, meaning they're selling for less than $400,000.

Mr Sleiman told the Leader there were heaps of government initiatives local first-home buyers should look into before giving up hope, and warned things could get worse before they get better.

"If interest rates come down and we still don't have enough supply, prices will continue to skyrocket," he said.

Speaking later on, Tamworth mayor Russell Webb said one of the biggest roadblocks to increasing the local supply of housing was a glut of bureaucracy from the state and federal governments.

"Red tape and green tape are causing all sorts of trouble in our building industry. I know in our own organisation we're struggling with the amount of work that's coming through and the number of people we've got to actually process that work," Cr Webb said.

"It's across the board, and until Planning NSW does a full review of the way they're handling planning across our state we're going to face those same challenges into the future."