Real estate prices: cheap Western Sydney suburbs where boom is back

Western Sydney has emerged from the ongoing housing market downturn with unexpected home price growth in key suburbs. See which areas had the biggest rises

Western Sydney has bounced back from Sydney’s housing slump, recording price growth for the first time since interest rate hikes began pummelling the market last year.

PropTrack figures showed Blacktown LGA, Greater Parramatta, the southwest and Canterbury-Bankstown area were the only Sydney regions to record price growth over the past three months.

The rest of the market had steep declines that wiped off up to $25,000 from the average value of properties across some areas over the three month period, according to PropTrack data.

Price falls were the most severe in up-market coastal regions such as the eastern suburbs and north shore, where housing affordability has been particularly stretched due to the rising cost of servicing debt.

Within this environment, Western Sydney has been an outlier because of the more affordable costs of entry into the housing market, which has enticed more buyers to purchase.

Among the 30 western suburbs with the biggest increases in house prices over the past year, eight were in the Blacktown region and another eight were in the southwest.

Nine of the top 30 growth suburbs were in the Blue Mountains or outer west, while the remainder were in the Parramatta area and Hills district.

Blacktown suburb Woodcroft had the biggest median house price rise over the past year at 21 per cent. The suburb remains one of Sydney’s most affordable, with a median of $980,000.

Other western suburbs with price growth over 10 per cent included Mt Druitt, Fairfield, Mt Pritchard, Riverstone and Schofields.

Homeowners who have sold properties in these regions revealed the surge in demand surprised them.

A recent, hotly contested auction in western suburb Greystanes. Picture: Julian Andrews

Jason Azzopardi, a resident of Colyton, near the St Marys and Mt Druitt region of Blacktown, said it took him just three days this week to sell his family home.

“We had been a little bit nervous considering what interest rates were doing, but we got a great price. It was a decent profit,” he said. “It feels like the area has become a lot more desirable. Prices are going up.”

Local agent Eli Alkassar of Ray White-St Marys said Sydney’s west was defying the current housing slump because of strong demand for cheaper properties, high population growth and a shortage of housing.

Infrastructure projects such as new rail and road links to the Badgerys Creek airport also attracted cashed up investors wanting to capitalise on the price growth potential, he said.

Jason and Nicola Azzopardi, with their son Charlie, sold their home in Colyton in Sydney’s west in three days on the market. Picture: David Swift

“Often are homes are selling before we even have the Saturday inspections because the buyers don’t want to compete,” Mr Alkassar said.

“Renovated houses are selling the quickest because there are not many of them available and few people want a fixer upper given how expensive building materials and labour have become.”

It comes as economists warned that earlier projections of a bottoming out in prices across the Sydney market as a whole may have been premature.

Greater Sydney’s housing market had been showing early signs of bottoming out over recent weeks, but Reserve Bank indications this week of multiple rate rises still to come could scuttle any chances of widespread home price rises later this year.

SQM Research has now indicated Greater Sydney price falls of 3-8 per cent over the year were more likely than its base scenario made last year of 5-7 per cent growth.

Separate modelling from PropTrack indicated price falls of 8-11 per cent were likely this year.

Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee said a pattern of strong western sales but weak sales within pricey eastern and northern beaches would likely continue for the rest of the year.

Originally published as Real estate prices: cheap Western Sydney suburbs where boom is back