Once upon a time, owning a million-dollar home was a luxury perceived achievable only by members of the Sydney elite.

Now, membership to the million-dollar keys club is about as common as activewear at Westfield, with the median house price in Sydney sitting at around $1.2M (almost double what it was just a decade ago.)

While two-thirds of Sydney’s suburbs already belong to the club, 36 newcomers joined the party over the year to October 2023. The suburb with the largest increase in median home price year-on-year to enter the $1M+ bracket was Bungarribee, in Blacktown. With a rise of 18.4%, house prices in the Greater Western Sydney suburb hit an average of $1,149,308. Meanwhile, in Quakers Hill, about a 15-minute drive from Bungarribee, the median lifted 15.5%, reaching $1,115,996.

Also enjoying median price increases of over 15% were Birrong, a small suburb south-west of Sydney in the Canterbury-Bankstown area, and Caddens, a relatively new master planned residential neighbourhood in Penrith. In Birrong, the year’s median ticked over to $1,106,687, a 15.2% rise. In Caddens—which until 2012 was part of neighbouring suburb Kingswood—the typical house now comes with a price tag of $1,102,386, up 15.9% from last year.

In western Sydney, median house values also surpassed the $1 million mark over the year to October in Sefton (up 13.9% to $1,126,641), South Granville (up 12.7% to $1,102,307), Guildford (up 14.4% to $1,092,639), and Greenfield Park (up 13.2% to $1,087,428).

South-west of Sydney, multi-cultural up-and-comer Wiley Park broke through the $1M barrier, enjoying a 14.1% median price increase to $1,125,321. North-west, Grantham Farm—a new suburb on the outskirts of Riverstone—hit $1,115,346, an increase of 11.7%.

House prices have risen throughout Sydney at such a fast pace that incomes haven’t had time to even remotely catch up. Despite the disparity, seven-figure price tags have become the norm now even in predominantly low-income suburbs like Cabramatta, which recorded the lowest median weekly income in 2021. Here, with an 8.1% increase, the median house price leapt to $1,055,189 over the year to October.

As for median unit prices, of 302 suburbs analysed by CoreLogic, 18 joined the $1M club. Castle Hill, in the Baulkham Hills District, now currently boasts a median unit price of $1.16M for a 3 bedder. Other new recruits include Brookvale on the Northern Beaches, St. Peters in the Inner West, and the Inner-city suburb of Zetland.

Meanwhile, in $2M club news, there are now 170 Sydney suburbs where the median house price exceeds $2M—up from 140 suburbs last year. One new recruit is Hurlstone Park, a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney neighbouring Dulwich Hill. Up 15.8%, house prices here have hit $2.03M. North-west of Sydney, within the city of Parramatta, Carlingford too joined the $2M ranks with a growth rate of 1.7%.

And in further evidence of the market’s recovery, values in Leichhardt, Annandale, Surry Hills, Kogarah Bay, and Beacon Hill have all rebounded back above $2M.
Welcome back to the club with the slightly less common keys.