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They are the suburbs defying the property downturn.
Australia’s best performing unit markets have been revealed, with the latest PropTrack data showing 44 suburbs where apartments had grown in value by 30 per cent or more in the past 12 months.
Crestmead in Queensland’s Logan-Beaudesert region was the top scorer with a stunning 116.7 per cent growth in values since this time last year. Its unit median now sits at $1.1325m from 34 sales.
Ivanhoe East in Melbourne’s northeast was the next best, with 84.9 per cent growth bringing its median to $1.305m, from 42 sales.
The wealthy suburb of Kurraba Point was third place and the top NSW neighbourhood, with a new median of $2.1m after 57.9 per cent growth.
Adelaide suburbs rounded out the top five, with Salisbury East in the north recording 57.3 per cent growth for a new median of $464,000, while Hectorville had 54.7 per cent growth for a new median of $735,000.
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Sydney’s prestigious Little Bay and Cremorne Point were the next on the list with 54.4 per cent and 43.1 per cent growth respectively, while WA rounded out the rest of the top 10 thanks to Kelmscott 42.9 per cent), Forrestfield (42.9 per cent) and Coolbellup (40.7 per cent).
The top performing unit markets were fairly reasonably spread around four of the major capitals. Only Victoria was poorly represented with second-placed Ivanhoe East its only entry in the list.
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Sunshine up north
Queensland dominated the apartment market performers, with 23 suburbs- more than half- on the list.
PropTrack economist Eleanor Creagh said it was “no surprise” to see Queensland well represented.
“When we look at home prices in Brisbane over the past year, the home price index is showing us units have grown 18 per cent, versus just 13 per cent for houses,” Ms Creagh said.
“This is on top of already incredibly strong growth over the past four or five years. Brisbane prices are up 75 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. Affordability is probably a factor in pushing buyers down the value chain and into units.”
After top placed Crestmead, it was South Gladstone, (40 per cent), Waterford (39.9), Kingston (38.3), West End (37.3), Clear Island Waters (36.9), Wooloowin (36.5), Balmoral (35.3), Rochedale South (35.2), Woodridge (34.6), Logan Central (34.5), Auchenflower (34.2), Waterford West (33.8), Annerley (33.2), Battery Hill (32.4), Gaythorne (32.1), Bargara (31.4), Edge Hill (30.7), Belgian Gardens (30.4), Edens Landing (30.3), Slacks Creek (30.2), Murrumba Downs (30.1) and Gordon Park (30.1).
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Second best western
WA was the next best performing state, with 10 suburbs on the list, all in the Perth area. After the three in the top 10 came Gosnells (38.7), Shoalwater (35.3), Armadale (34.2), Ellenbrook (33.6), Canning Vale (33.3), Osborne Park (30.5) and Bayswater (30.2).
Ms Creagh noted that Western Australia had led the country for growth over 12 months, with Perth houses up 23 per cent and units up 21 per cent.
“We’re continuing to see Perth as one of the top performing markets in the country,” she said. “So although we’re seeing the flow of new listings hitting the market, the strength of buyer demand there is absorbing those new listings and total stock on market remains very constrained, which is fuelling competitive conditions and strong price growth in Perth.
“We had seen a decade of underperformance for Perth and Western Australia remains one of the most affordable states, so in conjunction, we’re now seeing very strong growth.”
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And the rest
NSW had just five on the list with Prospect (34.7) and Centennial Park (34.4) joining the three mentioned in the top 10.
South Australia had four in total, with Henley Beach (39.2) and Paradise (37.6) coming after the top five entrants Salisbury East and Hectorville.
The ACT’s loan entrant was Campbell, with 32 per cent growth for the year, despite a 10.4 per cent correction over the last three months, while Tasmania and the Northern Territory failed to feature in the top performers list.
Note: Suburbs were filtered to include only those with 30 or more sales for the year in order to avoid anomalies.
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