Canberra's best and worst performing suburbs

The latest Canberra median house and unit prices reveal there are differing fortunes across suburbs in the nation’s capital.

According to Domain data, Barton, Phillip and the City are the worst performing suburbs in Canberra.

Among suburbs with more than 50 sales in 2018, Barton units had the greatest fall, with the median price of $489,000 representing a year-on-year decline of 14.2 per cent.

Units in Phillip and the City also recorded significant drops at 13.9 per cent and 13.4 per cent, respectively. Across the three suburbs, units are overwhelmingly the main dwelling type.

Houses were not immune to falls with north side suburbs recording the greatest declines.

Weetangera’s median house price of $815,000 is a drop of 8.4 per cent year-on-year – the worst performing suburb in Canberra’s housing market.

Median house prices in Franklin, Bonner and Casey all recorded falls, and rounded out the top 10 worst performers.

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This comes as the recent Domain House Price Report for the December quarter found house price growth in Canberra has stalled and units have experienced the sharpest decline in two decades.

Ainslie’s housing marking remained Canberra’s top performer with year-on-year growth in the median price of 23.2 per cent

This was followed by Greenway’s unit market, which recorded a growth of 15.1 per cent – not surprising as the overall region of Tuggeranong recorded growth of 7.1 per cent.

McGrath Estate Agents Woden agent Marty Kooistra said the reason Greenway units were performing strongly was due to “general affordability and value for money”.

“The quality of apartments in Greenway, compared to the inner city, is better with regards to slightly larger floor plans,” he said.

“Inclusions are relatively similar but there’s better value for money [in Greenway].”

Moncrieff, Holt and Holder houses rounded out the top five best performing suburbs.

Watson was the only suburb to have both houses and units included in the top 10 performers. Its median house price of $782,000, up 9.3 per cent year-on-year and the median unit price of $375,000 is up 8.7 per cent.

LJ Hooker Dickson agent Andrew Grenfell said Watson’s performance was driven by the second and third-home buyer market who were attracted to family homes in the area.

“A lot of the older generation is moving out and the demographic moving in is younger families who are looking to buy something on a bigger block that they can extend and renovate,” he said.

“The community is family-friendly and there are good schools.”

Mr Grenfell said the unit market in the suburb was bolstered by bigger floor plans and less congestion than other inner-city suburbs.