‘We’ve loved it’: The cheapest suburbs within 10km of Melbourne’s CBD

Home buyers looking for the cheapest house prices in inner Melbourne will need to go west, to a small suburb which is almost one-fifth covered in green space.

Maidstone recorded a median house price of $808,000 last year, Domain data shows, making it the cheapest suburb within 10 kilometres of Melbourne’s CBD.

Other neighbourhoods that scrape under the $1 million mark include West Footscray ($890,000), Footscray ($900,000), Brunswick West ($922,500) and Kensington ($955,000), all offering value for money.

However, half of the top best buys near the city now have median house prices over $1 million, including Flemington, Maribyrnong, Preston and Yarraville, after Melbourne’s overall market rose last year.

By contrast, the most expensive suburbs within 10 kilometres of Melbourne’s CBD are largely in the east or south-east and cost more than double, such as Toorak ($4,725,000), Brighton ($2.92 million), Malvern ($2.9 million), Canterbury ($2,885,000) and Balwyn ($2,868,000). Melbourne’s overall median house price is $1,047,000.

While the inner west may be cheaper, experts say prices are still too high for many without family help to afford a detached house.

Units offer a cheaper option, with Carlton’s median the cheapest in the inner suburbs at $345,000. The suburb includes many student accommodation units.

Travancore ($358,500), West Footscray ($362,500), Flemington ($375,500) and Brunswick West ($395,000) also offer bargain buys for unit hunters.

Domain chief of research and economics Dr Nicola Powell said some of the cheapest inner suburbs are nearby more expensive and more sought-after locales.

“They can be opposite to neighbouring suburbs which may be much more gentrified,” Powell said. “If buyers can hop a suburb or two away, a couple of stops along the tram or train line, it can be a genuine game changer in price point.”

Melbourne has its mojo back, one economist said.Credit: Wayne Taylor

She said demand was buoyed by a spillover of people being squeezed out of a tighter, more expensive rental market, and buyers moving away from wanting bigger houses to work from home, to smaller properties closer to their reopened offices.

Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan said there was a huge premium on houses, versus units, when it came to buying closer to the city, which had become higher as property prices rose.

It would be extremely hard for first home buyers to get into the inner-city house market without major financial help or more affordable homes being built, he said.

Even so, since the end of COVID lockdowns, people had been moving back towards the city, despite higher prices in some areas, either buying or moving back to homes they already owned.

“I think the cities have got their mojos back – the buzz is back in Sydney and Melbourne,” Hassan said.

Truc Nguyen bought his five-bedroom home in Flemington almost a decade ago to be closer to work.

He is now selling the house he shares with his wife and three children to find a new home close to schools in the northern suburbs.

Flemington, one of the top 10 best value suburbs within 10 kilometres of the city, has been a place the Nguyens have loved to live for the past decade, because of its history, cafe culture and tree-lined streets.

Truc Nguyen is selling his family home in Flemington.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“Absolutely we’ve loved it,” Nguyen said. “I’m still wanting to stay, but you can’t hang onto this life here forever, things have to change.

“We originally bought into the area because it’s close to where we grew up – we have a Vietnamese background, so we’re Footscray and West Footscray people originally,” Nguyen said. “[And] price-wise it did help – at the time, the equivalent in the eastern suburbs would have been half-a-million dollars more.”

His selling agent, Nelson Alexander Flemington partner Ryan Currie, said the market had sparked back into action in early 2024, after slowing late last year.

A series of interest rate rises led to vendors sitting on the fence, waiting until the market improved before listing their homes for sale.

“The signs now are good,” Currie said. “People are making decisions to buy and sell rather than twirl their car keys on their fingers and not get in.”

Currie said more stock was hitting the market, with the recent hold on interest rates by the Reserve Bank, making buyers and sellers more confident.

“Easter is six weeks away, so some people are waiting until after Easter to see the new stock that comes up,” he said.

In Maidstone, Barry Plant Yarraville’s Jason Allen said it was a similar story with the local market ticking along.

“Turnover has picked up quite strongly since the start of the year,” Allen said. “Young families are coming in and the new development of the Footscray hospital has brought in buyers, as has shopping centres like Highpoint.”