25 Aug Suburbs with million-dollar medians – John McGrath
In his column in Switzer, John McGrath discusses which suburbs have million-dollar medians.
HERE’S WHAT HE HAD TO SAY:
During my 30 years in real estate, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the marketplace. 
As a young agent in Sydney back in the 1980s, if I was dealing with a millionaire client, I was dealing with someone from the upper echelon of society.
Some type of high-profile businessperson, investor, or someone with family money.
Today, in most cases, one million dollars is the typical budget for a family home.
And according to new statistics, it’s also the median price in 613 suburbs nationwide.
Independent analysts, CoreLogic, have just released their latest stats on suburbs with million-dollar medians.
They looked at the median sale price of every suburb across Australia and found that there were 613 suburbs with a median value of at least $1m – more than double the number of suburbs in 2013 and 29% more than last year.
Among the 613 suburbs, 570 had a median house price above $1m and 43 had a median apartment price above $1m.
(By the way, to keep things accurate, CoreLogic only included suburbs that had recorded at least 100 sales.)
WHAT HAPPENED?
Well, a boom happened.
A massive one.
In fact, the latest numbers put the increase in property values over the past four years since this current growth cycle began at 61.3% for Sydney property market, and 42% for Melbourne property market.
Tasmania remains the only state with not a single suburb median above $1m.
In terms of the states with the highest number of $1m suburbs, of course New South Wales leads with 418, followed by 102 in Victoria, 44 in Western Australia, 19 in Queensland, 15 in South Australia, 12 in the Australian Capital Territory and three in the Northern Territory.
No wonder they’re getting more enquiries down there from Sydney and Melbourne downsizers who are keen to escape the expensive capital cities for gorgeous scenery and a cooler climate.
Let’s take a look at the Top 25 suburbs with the highest median prices in Australia.
Only two are outside Sydney – Toorak in Victoria and Peppermint Grove in Western Australia.
Top 25 most expensive suburbs
TO ROUND OUT THE NATIONAL PICTURE:
- The most expensive suburb in Queensland is Teneriffe (median $1.645m for houses)
- The most expensive suburb in South Australia is Springfield (median $1.737m for houses)
The most expensive suburb in the Northern Territory is Larrakeyah (median $1.197m for houses)- The most expensive suburb in the Australian Capital Territory is Forrest (median $2.068m for houses)
CoreLogic also tells us that the number of homes selling for $2 million or more is on the rise.
When the growth cycle started in mid-2012, there had been 4,103 sales of $2 m or more across 884 suburbs in the preceding 12 months.
By comparison, in the year to March 2016, there were 11,648 sales across 1,437 suburbs.
So what does all of this mean?
On the one side, there’s the affordability issue – yes, it’s getting worse in Sydney.
On the flipside, the rising number of million dollar suburbs means rising wealth for home owners. So in my mind, being a property owner certainly has its rewards.
No Comments