Hipster suburbs prove their pulling power

Property seekers are increasingly turning towards areas with an enigmatically edgy, young and ever so trendy vibe.

Toorak is now deemed too expensive for many buyers. Picture: Ian Currie

Right now, there is a strong trend in search behaviour on realestate.com.au — property seekers are overwhelmingly looking at premium suburbs.

Locations that dropped in terms of views per listing because they were too expensive, such as Manly in Sydney and Toorak in Melbourne, have roared back up into the top 10 as buyers take advantage of lower interest rates, improved sentiment and prices that seem to have bottomed out. While this is pretty consistent with what you would expect at the start of a cycle, another more interesting trend has emerged; the rise of the hipster suburb.

The definition of a hipster suburb is, of course, open to interpretation and not easily measured. An online search suggests the definition is quite complex. It is hard to count beards per capita or come to any agreement about what sort of music a hipster listens to. Many hipsters quite possibly shun the term so even asking them may not provide a true reflection of their actual numbers.

 

To make it easy, I will self-define. In Sydney, Newtown is hipster, Paddington isn’t. In Melbourne, Brunswick makes the grade but South Yarra, not so much. People in Newtown and Brunswick are generally younger and look more edgy. While Paddington and South Yarra were once hipster enclaves, they are now too expensive and too right-leaning. Newtown and Brunswick offer high amenity, lots of places to eat and a vibrant night-life but are also cheaper.

Hipster suburbs are also generally left-leaning and this is one of the main reasons why we have seen Brunswick and Newtown zoom up the list of popular suburbs. The more left-leaning a local government is, the more difficult to develop housing. Hipsters are the ultimate NIMBYs. Ask any developer about getting building approvals in inner left-leaning local government areas and it is pretty consistent they are the most difficult. Apparently, hipsters don’t like too many people around them.

King Street in Sydney’s Newtown. Picture: AAP

Allambie Heights and Narraweena are both on Sydney’s northern beaches, a strongly right-leaning electorate, but they are proving similar to Brunswick and Newtown — popular with young people and close to amenities.

Apart from politics, there are other differences. Older homes are being knocked down instead of renovated and the leisure transport of choice is surfboards.

Whatever the right-leaning version of a hipster is, this appears to be their enclave.

High demand and relative lack of new housing will eventually push prices in Newtown, Brunswick, Allambie Heights and Narraweena to such an extent they will go the same way as South Yarra and Paddington — expensive areas populated by old people. For the next hipster burbs, look to where young people are now starting to move — inner-west Melbourne and inner-south Sydney. No doubt I have noticed this trend far later than the hippest Melbourne crowd, but Footscray and Sunshine are two areas I will be watching closely.

Nerida Conisbee is chief economist at REA Group.