A string of liveable Sydney suburbs that were affordable for home buyers until recently have recorded soaring price growth, pushing them out of reach.
Sixteen suburbs that had starred in the PRD Affordable and Liveable Property Guide reports over the last decade have now risen above Sydney’s median house price of $1,421,413 on PRD data.
House prices in Croydon Park were once considered relatively affordable but have slipped out of reach. Credit: Peter Rae
Concord last featured in the semi-annual report - which highlights amenity-rich areas below the median house price - in 2015. It has since jumped 109 per cent to a median house price of $2.8 million.
Hornsby recorded a 50.3 per cent jump since it last made the report in 2019. The median house price in the leafy suburb is now $1.61 million.
Croydon Park last made the list in 2019 but house prices there have since risen 46 per cent to $1.75 million, while other suburbs that slipped out of reach include Caringbah (now $1,674,000), Miranda (now $1.66 million), Como (now $1,618,000) and St Peters (now $1,600,500).
For units, Dee Why at $879,000 surpassed the city’s median unit price of $844,659. Dee Why last made the report in 2018.
PRD Real Estate chief economist Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo said 353 Sydney suburbs were assessed for liveability then the list was sorted based on affordability.
Basic liveability considers schools, a medical centre, shops, and a green space within five kilometres, as well as public transport access, employment rate and a low crime rate.
“When we say affordable… It’s based on pricing. So we wanted to make sure that it’s below the Sydney median house price, which is around $1.4 million,” she said.
Mardiasmo said the Sydney market was in a strong recovery phase.
”This is actually a window of opportunity because it’s still coming out from that cycle where it went down slightly because of cash [rate] hikes,” she said.
As the data showed more houses out of reach than units, a first-home buyer would have a higher chance of buying a unit in a liveable area than a house, Mardiasmo said.
“One of the good things about Sydney is that when it comes to affordable and livable suburbs, they’re not just in the one concentrated area,” she said.
“It’s not in a small pocket, or all in the north, or all in the west.”
Concord house prices have risen.Credit: Rhett Wyman.
Horwood Nolan’s Ben Horwood was not surprised by the 109 per cent increase in Concord’s median house price to $2,800,000 since 2015.
“I’ve always referred to Concord as being the Double Bay of the inner west,” he said.
“In terms of lifestyle, it’s the centre of Sydney, you can get everywhere, within a very short space of time. It’s got good access to the private schools in Strathfield, but it’s on the water.”
Horwood said Concord used to be considered Strathfield’s poorer relation or its little brother but now they are more like twins.
“You get a lot of overlap from people looking at both markets.”
LJ Hooker’s head of research Mathew Tiller said over time the more gentrified suburbs become, the more in demand they are.
Tiller said property values rise as first-home buyers, for example, try to upsize from their apartment within the same suburb. “If they can’t do that they move into the suburb next door if it’s more affordable,” he said.
“As more people move in, houses get renovated [and] become gentrified... It’s that story of suburbs next door to popular suburbs becoming more popular, having more renovations, [and] new houses starting to come in. And that obviously lifts the median price.”
Many of the suburbs that surpassed affordability were on a train line. Access to transport to reduce commute times was a clear indicator of a suburb’s popularity, Tiller said.
“More people are living close to transport.”
Ray White’s Alex Iannuzzelli said buyers priced out of upper north shore suburbs that were closer to the city were drawn to Hornsby.
“[It] is spreading those buyers and their budgets further out to Hornsby and the surrounding suburbs as well, where it’s still within close proximity to or easy access to the city, but also close to the private schools.”
Iannuzzelli said the Westfield shopping centre and the train station were also major drawcards.
“It’s a dining and entertaining hub for owners that are in a five to ten kilometre radius.”
As long as the upper north shore prices continue to rise the suburbs on the fringes such as Hornsby will continue to increase also, Iannuzzelli said.