The six places you can buy in SA at 2013 prices, according to PropTrack

Think you can’t buy anything for the same price – or less – as you could 10 years ago? Think again. Here are the six SA places you can do it.

Tom Bowden

@tommyjbowden

2 min read

June 24, 2023 - 6:30AM

News Corp Australia Network

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Think you can’t buy anything for the same price – or less – as you could 10 years ago?

Think again.

New data from PropTrack reveals the one Adelaide suburb and the five towns across South Australia where you can buy a home today for less than it would have cost you 10 years ago.

And the price difference in some of these locations might surprise you.

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According to the data, the biggest price drop can be found in Roxby Downs, where a median-priced home has plunged a whopping $205,000 over the past 10 years.

The median house price in the mining town in 2013 was $482,500, PropTrack records show.

Fast forward a decade and the town’s median now sits at $277,500 – a hefty 42 per cent value loss.

The data backs up a report published in May by DSR Data on “no-go zones” or “disaster areas” for investors, which singled out Roxby Downs as a place to avoid.

DSR Score analyst Jeremy Sheppard said there was no “diplomatic term” to describe market conditions in many of the suburbs identified in that report.

“If I was an investor in these markets I would have sleepless nights wondering what’s going to happen,” he said.

The main street of Roxby Down.

Roxby Downs was singled out in that report as having roughly one in 12 homes in the mining town listed for sale – five times higher than the national average.

“No demand, too much supply – and it has been like that for years,” the report read.

“This is not a lifestyle choice location.”

Dollar-wise, PropTrack data shows houses in Whyalla Jenkins have taken the next biggest hit, with their $290,000 median prices sitting $34,000, or 10 per cent, below the $324,000 they were selling for in 2013.

Coober Pedy houses have also copped a blow. In 2013 they were selling for $104,000.

Now their median price is just $81,500 – a drop of $22,500 or 22 per cent.

Coober Pedy’s prices haven’t fared too well over the past 10 years, according to PropTrack.

Closer to home, the only suburb in metropolitan Adelaide where values are currently lower than that of 10 years ago is Hackham, where the median unit price has dropped 35 per cent.

The median unit price is currently $150,000, some $79,500 below the $229,500 they commanded in 2013.

Raine & Horne selling agent John Drabic said Hackham was generally a solid-performing first-homebuyer market and he thought the suburb’s unit median was being skewed by recent sales of single-bedroom and retirement living properties.

“I’m 99 per cent sure that would be the case,” he said.

“There are not a lot of units in Hackham.

“Generally speaking, units have gone up because houses have and that’s driven a lot of buyers to buying units.

“It’s always been a great place to buy – it’s an entry-level market and those buyers have done extremely well over the past couple of years.”