The number of SA suburbs with million-dollar sales soars

See every suburb and town to have recorded a sale over $1m in the 12 months to December last year, and how many there were 10 years ago, in this searchable interactive.

Million-dollar properties in South Australia are more commonplace than ever, new data shows, with the number of suburbs to record a $1m sale skyrocketing over the past five years.

According to CoreLogic data, the number of suburbs to record million-dollar sales in the 12 months to December has increased 64 per cent over the past five years, and is up 126 per cent on $1m+ sales recorded for the same period in 2011.

A whopping 314 suburbs recorded million-dollar sales last year, up from 191 in the same period in 2016, and 139 in 2011.

Interestingly, while North Adelaide topped both the 2011 and 2016 list for the number of sales with 23 and 37 respectively, it ranked fourth last year, recording 57 sales of $1m or more.

Norwood topped the latest list with 62 million-dollar sales, followed by Henley Beach with 60, Adelaide with 58 and Beaumont at equal fourth with 57.

Ouwens Casserly Real Estate’s Henley Beach specialist Linda Van Hooff said the number of million-dollar sales in the suburb – up from 19 in 2016 – were far more noticeable as demand for coastal living had increased.

“$1m used to get you on the water in Henley and now you’re paying about $600,000 for a two-bedroom unit about four or five streets back from the water,” she said.

“That value has been increasing consistently ever since the Henley Square upgrade, and particularly since Covid, people really appreciate being able to be close to the coast.”

The data shows there were 3158 sales of $1m or more in the 12 months to December last year – representing 10.5 per cent of the 30,061 sales recorded during that period.

This is an increases of the 961 million-dollar sales recorded during the same period in 2016, when there were 961 – or 4 per cent of the 23,832 sales for the 12 month period.

10 years ago there were just 518 sales of $1m or more, representing 2.6 per cent of the 20,022 sales for that period.

Jayne Bartsch at the 8 Bernhardt Cres, Hahndorf home she is selling and hoping to fetch more than $1m for. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Retiree Jayne Bartsch is selling her 8 Bernhardt Crescent, Hahndorf property through Harris Real Estate and said she was confident it would sell for more than $1 million.

“A few years ago we would not have got the value of our property, considering what we’ve put into this block of land and the house, but hopefully now we’ll get a good financial return,” she said.

“A lot of people are looking in the hills and I’m confident we’re selling at the optimal time.”

Regionally, 80 towns recorded million-dollar sales in the 12 months to December, up 233 per cent on the 24 recorded in 2016 and 344 per cent on 2011’s 18.

Middleton topped the list for 2021 with 14 million-dollar-plus sales, just one sale ahead of nearby Encounter Bay with 13 sales.

Carrickalinga, McCracken, Port Elliot and Robe shared a four-way tie for the top spot on the 2016 regional list with three sales, while both Waitpinga and Port Elliot recorded the most million-dollar sales for 2011 with three each.