Sydney home values: suburbs where properties earned more than their owners over past year

Most Sydney homeowners are now getting more wealth from value rises on their properties than their jobs, with new data revealing the latest value changes in every suburb.

Owning a Sydney house has become more lucrative than working most jobs.

Exclusive PropTrack research revealed the average Sydney house increased in value by about $110,000 over the 2023/24 financial year, surpassing the after-tax income of the average city worker.

There were even bigger rises in the most sought after areas, with 68 suburbs recording median house value increases of $200,000 or more over the year to July 1.

Sydney’s average annual salary is about $91,000, ABS figures show. This would normally deliver about $69,000 in after-tax earnings for someone who structured their finances in a basic way.

Massive value rises were not consigned to houses only – unit prices rose by an average of $71,000 over the past year across Greater Sydney.

PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said the level of wealth locked up in Sydney homes was “astonishing”.

Experts said the extreme home value rises over the past year meant homeowners were richer while those not already in the market saw their hopes of buying slip further out of reach.

“Housing has become an enormous store of wealth in Sydney. It’s pretty astonishing,” said PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty.

MORE: Mark Bouris’s big money warning

“At the same time, when prices rise by well over annual salaries it makes it impossible for first-home buyers to keep up and more and more people are getting pushed out the market.”

PropTrack’s figures showed even the highest earning workers would have struggled to keep pace with home value rises in the top growth suburbs across Sydney.

House values shot up by an average of about $685,000 in Clovelly, eclipsing the $604,000 average earnings of neurosurgeons – the nation’s top paid professionals, according to tax office figures.

Clovelly had one of the biggest rises: this semi recently sold for $4.95m.

Rises in other beach suburbs like Bondi, North Curl Curl and Coogee were about $500,000 over the year – higher than the pay of a typical anaesthetist or financial dealer.

MORE: Troubled OnlyFans star’s $12m family mansion for sale

The biggest unit value rise was in northern beaches suburb Fairlight, where the median value rose by about $167,000 over the year, going from $1.54m at the start of the year to the current $1.71m.

Ms Flaherty said the wealth effect of property was part of what was making housing so unaffordable.

“Prices are continuing to go up because a lot of the buyers out there don’t need a mortgage,” Ms Flaherty said.

“They would have seen substantial equity gains on their properties and if they use that equity to buy an investment property or if they’re downsizing to a cheaper area they can push prices up.”

Building capacity constraints at a time of soaring migration were compounding the unequal playing, Ms Flaherty added.

“Sydney’s population is growing faster than the supply of housing is,” she said, adding that only 63 per cent of the homes needed to house that population growth are getting built. “This suggests prices will keep rising,” she said.

Buyer’s agent Lloyd Edge said most of the purchasers snapping up Sydney homes worked in higher-paying jobs like finance and IT and they were the ones getting most of the benefit from the equity gains.

“Their equity gains would be higher than the income from their jobs in many instances,” he said.

“If you’re a nurse or teaching it’s really difficult to buy in Sydney. The only way you can really get any of that wealth from housing is by investing in a different city that’s more affordable.”

Marc and Marissa Svinos are selling their home in Beverly Park. Photo: Tom Parrish

McGrath agent Bill Tsounias – who sells primarily in the St George region, one of the Sydney areas with the fastest growing prices last year – said it was common for long-time homeowners not to realise how much wealth was locked up in their properties.

“It’s a common conversation,” he said. “We see it a lot with people who bought decades ago and haven’t kept up with the market.

“They find their house is worth hundreds of thousands more than they thought and it’s a bit of a shock.”

Many of the homeowners who have seen incredible growth on the value of their properties said they had mixed feelings about the change.

Marc Svinos, who is selling the Beverley Park house he bought in 2018 and seeking a new home, said values were unrecognisable from when we was house hunting in the area six years ago.

He said: “We feel lucky but it’s also daunting because we’re looking for a new home and we know we’ll never again see the price we bought our Beverley Park home for. We will have to take it as it comes.”