Melbourne ranked Victoria’s most valuable suburb, with net worth higher than GDP of foreign nations

Forget Brighton and Toorak, an unexpected suburb is home to Victoria’s most valuable real estate market with a jaw-dropping, multibillion-dollar net worth surpassing some countries.

Nathan Mawby

@mrmawby

3 min read

January 15, 2025 - 4:31AM

Real Estate

Melbourne has emerged as the surprising Victorian suburb that has the most valuable property market.

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Move over Brighton and Toorak, Melbourne is Victoria’s most valuable suburb — with a net worth higher than dozens of countries in Africa, Asia and even Europe.

As Australia’s residential property markets hit a combined $11 trillion in 2024, postcode 3000 became home to the nation’s most concentrated pocket of housing wealth outside of Sydney.

Worth a combined sum of $25.937bn, Melbourne’s array of 49,779 apartments, townhouses and it’s handful of actual houses has made it the third most valuable property suburb in the country — behind Mosman and Castle Hill in NSW.

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The almost $26bn figure is higher than the GDP of European nations including Armenia, Malta and Moldova, as well as a litany of African nations and Mongolioa in Asia.

CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said the Victorian capital had defied expectations.

“Some people might expect Australia’s most valuable suburbs to be very expensive Sydney areas like Point Piper and Bellevue Hill, but the most valuable areas tend to be bigger suburbs,” Mr Lawless said.

“The Melbourne CBD is an example of one of the most valuable suburbs. It’s a small area, but it’s the high density and large number of dwellings that adds to the overall value.”

Melcorp director Mark Giuliano said the suburb’s housing market had an “okay” year in 2024, though could have performed quite strongly if there hadn’t been significant numbers of homes for sale as a result of increased land tax costs.

“But this year, the start of the year has had strong interest at inspections already,” Mr Giuliano said.

He noted that the city had a two-speed market, with larger older apartments and the better designed newer ones typically doing quite well — while those built purely for investors were still often losing money.

Brighton was the city’s next most valuable suburb, with its 10,923 homes worth a total of $25.837bn — edged out of top spot in Victoria as its median house price fell over the past year. It was Australia’s fourth most valuable suburb.

2406/22-24 Jane Bell Lane, Melbourne, sold in October last year and shows the kind of home you can get in an older building that offers more space.

2402/27 Therry St, Melbourne, is in a more modern complex — but also offers spacious dimensions that appeal to a wide range of buyers. It sold for $720,000 last year.

JP Dixon boss Jonathan Dixon said the suburb had a tougher year in 2024, and home sales had struggled during an adjustment period for a few months.

However, in 2025 Mr Dixon said Brighton could easily move into top spot as Melbourne’s most valuable suburb.

“I reckon this year will be a good one,” he said.

Rising interest from migrant families from China that initially settled around Glen Waverley and Wheelers Hill, as well as from families in Hawthorn and Kew who were now seeking a more bayside home were behind strong demand early in 2025, Mr Dixon said.

Sold for $9.5m last year, this Brighton home shows why the suburb’s relatively smaller number of residences command higher price tags.

This Glen Waverley home sold for $3.09m in November, and helped secure the suburb third place on the list of the city’s most valuable areas.

The CoreLogic figures show Glen Waverley was the wider city of Melbourne’s next most concentrated area for housing wealth, with a combined $24.479bn value across its almost 16,500 homes.

Kew at $21.673bn and Mt Waverley at $21.106bn rounded out the city’s top five, with Toorak’s comparatively smaller number of homes earning the suburb seventh place across the metropolitan area — despite individual properties there thought to be worth more than $100m.

Mr Lawless said the country’s most valuable suburbs usually had a combination of high property price points and large numbers of dwellings, with areas that have had substantial apartment development in the past two decades also well represented.

2 Highgate Hill, Toorak, recently sold for $17.5m — but the suburb’s relative low density left it seventh on the list of Victoria’s most valuable housing markets by total value.

Reservoir was another surprising entry to the top 10 list, but with multimillion-dollar home sales including 9 Joffre St and the suburb’s sheer size it wasn’t surprising to CoreLogic.

“There is a real concentration of value in our capitals,” he said.

“This points to where people want to live and where they believe they can get a high standard of living.”

On the other side of the divide, rural areas a long way from the coast and with a combination of limited local amenities and sparse housing density were unsurprisingly home to less valuable housing markets.

Pentland Hills near Bacchus Marsh was regarded as metropolitan Melbourne’s least valuable pocket, with a combined housing value of just $89.9m, the 18th lowest number of any capital city suburb nationwide.

The CoreLogic research estimated values based on sales in each area as well as numbers of homes, with those featuring fewer than 100 dwellings excluded.