Over my 30 years in real estate, I’ve seen a lot of change 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 the upper echelon of society. Some type of high profile businessperson, investor or someone with family money.
image via McGrath
Today, in most cases a 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, which is 29% more suburbs than last year.
Independent analysts, CoreLogic RP Data 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 there were 613 suburbs with a median value of at least $1 million – more than double the number of suburbs in 2013.
Among those 613 suburbs, 570 had a median house price above $1 million and 43 had a median apartment price above $1 million. (By the way, to keep things accurate, CoreLogic RP Data only included suburbs that had recorded at least 100 sales.)
What happened? Well, a boom happened. A massive one. In fact, latest numbers put the increase in property values over the past four years since this current growth cycle began at 61.3% for Sydney and 42% for Melbourne.
Tasmania remains the only state with not a single suburb median above $1 million. No wonder they’re getting more enquiry down there from Sydney and Melbourne downsizers keen to escape the expensive capital cities for gorgeous scenery and a cooler climate.
In terms of the states with the highest number of $1 million 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 3 in the Northern Territory.
Let’s take a look at the Top 25 suburbs with the highest median prices in the country. Only two are outside Sydney – Toorak in Victoria and Peppermint Grove in Western Australia.
Top 25 most expensive suburbs
1. Darling Point, Sydney $6.420M (houses)
2. Point Piper, Sydney $6.030M (houses)
3. Centennial Park, Sydney $5.904M (houses)
4. Bellevue Hill, Sydney $4.525M (houses)
5. Cremorne Point, Sydney $4.511M (houses)
6. Potts Point, Sydney $3.998M (houses)
7. Vaucluse, Sydney $3.946M (houses)
8. Woolwich, Sydney $3.759M (houses)
9. Toorak, Melbourne $3.756M (houses)
10. Tamarama, Sydney $3.747M (houses)
11. Henley, Sydney $3.730M (houses)
12. Dover Heights, Sydney $3.700M (houses)
13. Lavender Bay, Sydney $3.532M (houses)
14. Double Bay, Sydney $3.425M (houses)
15. Watsons Bay, Sydney $3.422M (houses)
16. Linley Point, Sydney $3.370M (houses)
17. Peppermint Grove, Perth $3.297M (houses)
18. Rose Bay, Sydney $3.264M (houses)
19. Mosman, Sydney $3.218M (houses)
20. Bronte, Sydney $3.177M (houses)
21. Clontarf, Sydney $3.143M (houses)
22. Longueville, Sydney $3.138M (houses)
23. Dawes Point, Sydney $2.985M (apartments)
24. Woollahra, Sydney $2.893M (houses)
25. Balmain East, Sydney $2.888M (houses)
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 RP Data 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 million 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.
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