Canberra's most expensive suburb is Forrest

Forrest has continued its reign as Canberra’s most expensive suburb in which to buy a house. However, its median price has dipped over the past six months.

A review of Australia’s premium suburbs by CoreLogic RP Data found that the median house price in Forrest dropped below the $2 million mark to $1,900,930. The suburb’s median price was $2,118,596 in August last year, according to the group’s statistics.

The inner south dominated the list of Canberra’s five most expensive suburbs. O’Malley came in second with a median price of $1,737,150, while Yarralumla, Griffith and Red Hill rounded out the list with median prices of $1.27, $1.23 and $1.13 million, respectively.

Campbell, which made the cut in the top five Canberra suburbs in August, was bumped by O’Malley in the new statistics.

CoreLogic’s senior research analyst Cameron Kusher said the data only includes suburbs that had at least 10 sales in 2015.

The data, which also explored the top decile of selling prices in the final quarter of 2015, found that the top 10 per cent of Canberra houses sold for at least $760,000.

Comparatively, buyers in Sydney spent at least $1.5 million for the top 10 per cent of houses in the city.

NSW’s most expensive suburbs also cost considerably more than prestige suburbs across the country. Darling Point topped the list with a lofty median house price of $6,841,364.

“The data shows the five most expensive suburbs for houses in NSW (all of which are in Sydney) all have a median value of more than $4 million,” Mr Kusher said.

“In comparison, the most expensive suburbs in for houses in Victoria and WA are more than $3 million, in SA it is more than $2 million, in Queensland, Northern Territory and ACT it is more than $1 million and in Tasmania it is less than $850,000.”

More than 36 Canberra homes sold for more than $2 million last year and the two most expensive sales were for houses in Forrest.

Number 9 Baudin Street sold for $3.71 million in May, while 15 Tennyson Street sold for almost $3.22 million in September.

Homes in the suburb are tightly held, with just six single residential homes currently listed for sale. The newest listing is former treasurer Joe Hockey’s house at 25 Furneaux Street.

Yarralumla topped the list for suburbs with the highest-priced units with a median of $841,922. It was followed by Ainslie with a median unit price of $691,685 with Deakin, Forrest and Barton also making the the top five.