Australia's best and worst performing suburbs since 2014

Australia’s best and worst-performing suburbs of the past five years have been revealed, with new data showing the hotspots that have skyrocketed since 2014 and those that have borne the brunt of the mining downturn.

The figures, released as part of Domain’s latest quarterly house price report, show the top 10 suburbs for houses and units combined, as well as the bottom 10 suburbs for houses and units combined.

The very Instagrammable northern NSW town of Byron Bay takes out the number one growth spot in the country; it’s median house price rose by a staggering 117 per cent since June 2014. 

Other suburbs with strong growth included units in Adelaide’s inner eastern blue-chip suburb, Norwood; houses in the wealthy Sydney eastern suburbs neighbourhood of Vaucluse; units in Noosa Heads, Queensland; and houses in Burradoo, in the NSW Southern Highlands.

Australia’s best performing suburbs since 2014

Source: Domain House Price Report, June quarter, 2019 (units and houses)

At the other end of the scale, some of the areas that recorded the biggest falls in median prices across Australia – and they are all for houses – include Western Australia Pilbara towns Newman, South Hedland, Port Headland, as well as Queensland mining towns like Moranbah and West Gladstone, where house prices have plummeted by up to 75 per cent since 2014.

Domain research analyst Eliza Owen said 2014 marked the end of the mining boom in Western Australia and its devastating effects on local property markets had been felt acutely.

“Over the course of 2014, the iron ore price essentially halved, so it makes sense that several suburbs on this list are in the Pilbara region, which is tied to the iron ore market,” she said.

“We’ve seen a similar effect in mining areas of Queensland. When mining projects halt, there’s less migration, less work and less demand for property in these in these areas, which is exactly what happened.”

Australia’s worst performing suburbs since 2014

Source: Domain House Price Report, June quarter, 2019 (units and houses)

The phenomenal growth of Byron Bay, where the median house price is now $1.3 million, was about much more than high profile trophy home sales and Chris Hemsworth’s new mansion, said local LJ Hooker director Liam Annesley. 

Instead, it was about the utopian idyll chased by young families from Sydney, many of whom had become the driving force behind the local property market in recent years.

“We get these young families who are dying to escape Sydney, and for them, Byron Bay is the ideal,” he said.

“They get to come up here, live the country town lifestyle with the beautiful beaches, but still get that urbanised feel, swapping their Sydney apartment for a Byron Bay house for $1.3 million.

“Byron Bay has always had that special magic, and it continues to have that. The young family market has really been responsible for that house price growth.”

In Noosa Heads, the median unit price has grown 80.4 per cent since 2014, and the reasons are two-fold, according to Dowling & Neylan director Dan Neylan.

“Units are up that much, firstly, because of the success of holiday letting and the growth of the tourism market. The proliferation of Airbnb for short term letting has pushed the values of apartments up,” he said.

“The other factor is that Noosa is feeling the pinch, not having any land releases in five years. Houses have gone up, so units have also gone up as people are priced out of houses.

“Whereas, five years ago you’d get into the housing market for $699,000 now sales are $899,000.”

House prices in Burradoo, in NSW’s Southern Highlands, increased by 79 per cent over the past five years, which local Raine & Horne agent Damien Ogilvy said was a result of a flurry of sales that had occurred in more recent years.

“This is really the blue-ribbon suburb of the Southern Highlands, so it’s always very tightly held,” he said.

“There’s a lot of really quality homes and old estates, and a lot of those have come to the market in the past 12 to 18 months – that’s really driven up the median house price over the period.”