Where are Australia's million dollar suburbs?

Million-dollar price tags aren’t just for luxury properties anymore – that’s the message from the latest real estate industry figures around the country. 

The latest data from SQM Research revealed earlier this month that Sydney’s median price for free-standing houses has crossed the million-dollar threshold, hitting $1,005,800 as of November 11. 

“Right now it would be impossible to purchase a free standing house in Sydney’s inner ring for under a million dollars, and will become increasingly difficult to purchase a free standing house in Sydney’s middle ring for under a million dollars,” commented Louis Christopher, SQM Research managing director. 

This is likely no surprise for those who have actively been looking for home loans in Sydney, where prices have been rising dramatically. In fact, properties in the price range have become increasingly common all over Australia in recent times. 

Million-dollar suburbs piling up elsewhere

This development has been some time coming in Sydney. It was back in October that the Sydney Morning Herald reported that a whole 20 percent of suburbs in the Harbour City had a million-dollar house price tag attached. This effectively means home buyers in Sydney had a one-in-five chance of looking at houses in seven figures.

However, it’s not only Sydney that has been seeing its home values ballooning. Melbourne and Perth have seen an uptick in their high-priced housing areas, too. 

In July, the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) reported that the 87 suburbs that comprise Melbourne’s inner ring – sitting within a 10km radius of the CBD – had exceeded the “magic million dollar median”. This includes suburbs like Richmond, Hawthorn, St Kilda and South Yara. 

At present, there are are 56 Melbourne suburbs listed by the REIV as having passed this median. The suburbs of Toorak and Deepdene are particularly notable, for being the only two above $2 million. Ten of these 56 – such as Carlton, Murrumbeena and Bentleigh – had entered the list during the September quarter alone. 

Bentleigh is perhaps a good symbol of what’s to come. According to RP Data, the suburb – where 97 houses were sold for over $1 million in the last year – is seeing older homes being replaced by multi-unit dwellings in mixed styles, which buyers are clearly warming to. 

Strong showings in metropolitan Perth

Perth is another city where buyers might be grimacing at their home loan calculator. The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia reported in September that over 2013-14, 26 more Perth suburbs sold homes and units for over $1 million. The proportion of sales between $1 and $2 million had grown from 6.7 percent to 8.2 percent of houses  and 3.3 percent  to 3.4 percent of apartments.

The newest suburbs to Perth’s million dollar list were Belmont, Ellenbrook, Huntingdale, North Lake, Piara Waters, Wandi and Pickering Brook.

It seems that if home buyers are looking for real estate in these three cities, they’ll need to take good care of their savings accounts – a deposit for such properties would be at least $200,000!

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