Canberra's recovery-leading postcodes: the best performing suburbs within 15km of the CBD

Property hunters are paying a premium to be closer to the city centres – and some suburbs have seen their median unit prices skyrocket over the past year, data shows.

Despite the continuing demand for tree or sea-change properties, homes close to the city centre have seen strong price growth in the 12 months to June. 

An analysis of Domain data has revealed the top-performing suburbs within 15 kilometres of the CBD in capital cities across the country. In Canberra, all the best-performing suburbs took their spot due to unit sales.

Closest to the CBD was the prestigious Barton – just south of the city centre – where the median price has risen by 25.6 per cent.

But the suburb with the strongest price-rebound was Denman Prospect, a 15-minute drive south-west of the city, where unit prices have soared by a massive 28.7 per cent.

Brett Hayman of Hayman Partners said the growth could be attributed to the quality of the apartments on offer, as well as the convenience of the location.

“Terry Snow – the developer who owns the Canberra airport – is well known in Canberra for his quality and everything being done properly. People have come to buy units here for that reason,” Hayman said.

“But it’s also the location – it’s got easy access to all parts of Canberra; you can go north-south very easily and all the roads that go directly into the city.

“There are excellent amenities: parks, shops and nature reserves. Just in general, it’s a fantastic area.”

While some recovery-leading suburbs were affluent, not every growth suburb was blue chip. There were pockets near city centres where the median house and unit prices were affordable, even after strong growth.

For example, in the third best-performing suburb, Franklin, unit prices saw strong growth at 18.7 per cent to $534,000 but remained about $10,000 less than Canberra’s overall unit median. 

Elsewhere around the country, a mixture of units and houses led the price growth in suburbs close to the CBD. 

In Sydney, Bellevue Hill shone with a median of $9 million, up 18.4 per cent over the year. Over the past five years, that median skyrocketed by 61.8 per cent.

Melbourne’s Caulfield South, nine kilometres from the city, saw unit prices jump by 23.2 per cent to $785,000, while Brisbane’s Alderley (about five-and-a-half kilometres from the city) saw a 25.1 per cent increase in its unit median, to $557,750. 

Unit prices in Adelaide also led the charge, with Glenelg North (8.8kms) seeing a new median of $535,000, up 52.9 per cent for the year to June. 

In Perth, house prices won the day. Winthrop – a short 11.2 kilometres south-east of the Perth CBD and just 7.5 kilometres from the Fremantle town centre – saw house prices reach a median of $1.22 million – 23.2 per cent higher than the previous year.