What goes up that must come down? Sydney’s house value growth, and just about everything else other than your age. Sorry.
While property price tags across Australia continue to break records, median house and unit prices in some once-booming suburbs of Sydney and beyond have regressed, offering potential buyers more affordable options at a time when they’re needed most.
PropTrack’s latest data shows a host of suburbs where prices declined significantly between May 2023 to May 2024 after experiencing huge growth in the year preceding.
For some holiday hotspots like Noosa Heads, higher interest rates, the ability to travel internationally and council restrictions on Airbnbs have impacted once soaring values, losing the lustre of their mid-pandemic sea change allure. Essentially, experiencing what every Gen Z-er fears the most – a glow down. Here, unit prices increased 41% (approx. $550,000) in the year to May 2023 before falling about -17%, or $317,500, in the past year.
Closer to home, in Sydney, two suburbs in the Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury region have landed themselves on the list of suburbs with the biggest house price swings. Glenorie, 44 kilometres north-west of Sydney’s CBD, saw a 19.1% increase of $450,000 in the year to May 2023 to reach $2.8 million, but a year later, homes are selling for -10.4% ($290K) cheaper, with the median now at around $2,510,000.
It’s a similar story in the neighbouring suburb of Glenhaven, where the median house price rose 15.9% between May ’22 to ’23 before coming down -6.1% closer to earth over the past year.
Regionally, once booming suburbs in NSW have seen prices decline as demand has normalised post covid. In Tocumwal, a small town in the Murray region of NSW nudging the border with Victoria, the median price fell -22% to $477,500 over the year after experiencing a soaring 42% rise to $615,000 between 2022-2023. Far south, straddling the coastal border of NSW and VIC, prices in Merimbula are down -11.3% to $862,500.
Up North, in Tweed Heads West and Tweed Heads South, house property prices increased upwards of 17% as interest in the more expensive Tweed Heads suburb spilled over. Now, with prices down -18.7%, that growth has been completely wiped out.
Despite record-breaking rents across Sydney, some inner-city suburbs are offering a window of opportunity amidst their post-high comedown. Petersham’s median unit price has swung from a 15.1% increase between May 2022 – 2023 to -14.8% the following year. Nearby Annandale is a similar story, where after experiencing a 13.3% rise in value, median unit prices have dropped -14.2% to $952,500.
Regionally in NSW, East Albury, home to one of the most popular contemporary art museums in the state, saw a jaw-dropping 43.9% rise in median rents over ’22-’23, only for prices to drop -17.2% the following year, with medians now at $310,000. Meanwhile, in Dubbo, affectionately dubbed ‘the city of smiles’ by those who’ve never been, unit values are down -12% to $330,000.
But with inflation back on the up and interest rates nowhere near down, it’s hard to say how long these windows of opportunity will stay open, or if new ones will open up elsewhere.
