Sydney’s most popular suburbs to buy a home revealed

Forget the Hills, Paddington or Penrith – the Sydney suburb that now has the most home sales is a high-rise Mecca that’s a blueprint for how most Sydneysiders will live in future.

Apartments are on the brink of surpassing houses as the most popular properties for Sydney homebuyers, with the Parramatta CBD emerging as the top suburb for purchasers to snap them up.

New figures revealed units accounted for just under half of all property purchases over the past year – a record high and up from roughly a third of transactions both five and 10 years ago.

Experts pointed to the greater supply and affordability, along with a drop in house sales, as the primary drivers of units accounting for a larger share of purchases.

Parramatta units were the most frequently traded properties over the past year with nearly 700 purchases, according to analysis of PropTrack sales figures.

Units in other emerging high-rise precincts Bankstown, Ryde, Wentworth Point and Liverpool were close behind with over 500 purchases each.

The view from a Parramatta unit that recently sold for $900,000.

This volume of sales eclipsed activity in some of the lower-density suburbs that have traditionally been among Sydney’s most popular for house buyers, including Castle Hill, Baulkham Hills, Paddington and St Ives.

Across Australia, unit transactions drawing close to level with houses was a theme unique to Sydney, with house sales accounting for about two thirds of property deals in Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.

Apartments accounted for about a quarter of sales in Perth and a fifth in Adelaide.

PropTrack economist Paul Ryan said Sydney’s rising share of apartment sales reflected an ongoing trend towards greater densification.

“They’re building far more units than houses, and plans for more densification will speed that up even more,” he said.

“With affordability at its lowest level in close to 30 years, it’s conceivable more people would turn to cheaper units.”

Wentworth Point has also been getting more popular.

PropTrack figures showed the median price of a Sydney unit was $812,000 – about $600,000, or 43 per cent, lower than the median house ($1.41m).

Angela and Tristan O’Connell, with kids Audrey, 9, and Ryan, 15, are selling their large Castlecrag house and moving to an inner city unit.

They said they see unit living as more sustainable. “There is too much house for us, we don’t need to live in a house this big – it’s a huge house,” Ms O’Connell said.

She added that their priorities had changed. “When we purchased we were just starting a family … it felt like a fabulously safe area, close to all the lower north shore schools,” she said. “It was a challenging suburb to (buy a house) in, there wasn’t a lot of turnover.”

The family are moving to a Barangaroo apartment. “We’ve never lived centrally so it will be nice to have a city lock up.”

Their agent Stewart Gordon of Ray White Lower North Shore said buyer interest in their Linden Way house was strong because there were few opportunities to snap up large houses.

The O'Connell family is selling their home on Linden Way, Castlecrag and moving to an inner city unit.

He noted the shortage of houses was also pushing some buyers to more affordable apartments, which were taking off.

“For a house we might get six through on a Saturday. For apartments, we are getting at least 25 groups through,” Mr Gordon said.

“Some of it is pricing. Rentals are quite good too so investors are back, but there are a lot of first-home buyers getting into the market with apartments too.”

Originally published as Sydney’s most popular suburbs to buy a home revealed