2024 financial year: Sydney’s 10 best and worst performing property markets

The Sydney suburbs that delivered the best and worst property market performance over the past year are challenging traditional expectations, where water-front affluent areas populate the top 10 lists for worst growth, while inland west and southern suburbs are on a strong growth.

West and south Sydney suburbs have muscled affluent northern beaches and eastern suburb areas off the top 10 list of places with the best value growth over the past year, turning a status quo on its head.

While prestigious suburbs like eastern suburbs’ Vaucluse have seen value growth in the past five years of 56 per cent, adding $3,178,061, or about $13,241 a week to the median value, in the past year they’ve been on a steady decline.

Since 2019, the strongest growth has been seen in the inner south west’s Banksia and Rockdale, with 77.7 per cent and 74.5 per cent growth respectively, and continuing their upward trend in over the past year, according to CoreLogic data commissioned by API Magazine.

For units the story is repeated, where coveted Sydney beachside suburbs are showing negative growth in places in the east like Tamarama, saw values grow 39.3 per cent in the past five years but have dropped in the past 12 months, and fallen further during the latest quarter.

Compared to the outer western suburb of Cranebrook near the Blue Mountains, its unit values grew 47 per cent in the past five years, 11.2 per cent in the past 12 months and 5.5 per cent in the quarter to 30 June 2024.

Sydney’s current median house value is $1,466,475, reflecting an annual growth of 6.8 per cent, and units are $855,468, an annual increase of 5 per cent, while the overall capital growth of Sydney dwellings is 6.3 per cent to a median of $1,170,152.

Top 10 best suburbs for houses and units

With $1.9 billion of infrastructure investment flowing into Western Sydney for projects like the Aerotropolis, it’s no surprise western suburbs are highly represented on CoreLogic’s lists of top 10 best for houses and units value growth.

The growing population there is being drawn towards new services and facilities under construction, including a man-made beach.

The standout for houses is Bonnyrigg Heights, which has seen a 22.8 per cent increase in property values in the past year, increasing by $214,877 and 6.4 per cent in the last three months, to achieve the current median value of $1,156,557.

Compared to the other nine houses on the list, Bonnyrigg Heights’ median value is the second most affordable by a difference of $29,000 to Elizabeth Hills’ median of $1,127,957, and though it had an annual increase of 1.2 per cent, the last quarter rise of 6.5 per cent added $68,533 to the median value in three months, or about $5,711 a week.

South Sydney is also well represented for both houses and units, in a cluster of suburbs adjacent to Botany Bay and on average an eight minute drive to Mascot International Airport.

More than half the houses in Rockdale, Arncliffe, Bexley, Bexley North, and Banksia, and units in Rosebery, Brighton-Le-Sands, and Hillsdale show double digit growth in the past year, and on average, 6.5 per cent in the last quarter.

Roseland’s annual growth was the second highest for houses at 17.3 per cent, adding 5.9 per cent in the last quarter arriving at a median value of $1,505,643, while Bexley, with a median of $1,721,766 grew annually by 10.8 per cent; and its quarterly growth at 7 per cent, adding $112,186 in value in the past three months, or about $2,337 a week.

For units, a smattering of suburbs in the inner west (Ashfield, Strathfield South and Summer Hill, the south (Brighton-Le-Sands, Rosebery and Hillsdale), to the northwest (Hunters Hill and Cranebrook), the inner city’s Redfern and far southern suburb of Camden make the top 10 cut.

Regarded as one of Sydney’s safest suburbs and home to prestigious schools such as St Josephs, Hunters Hill in Sydney’s northwest has the highest median price for a unit at $1,267,100, after an 18.4 per cent five-year growth, 6.8 per cent annual growth, and up 5.6 per cent in the last quarter.

The inner city suburb of Redfern (median, $1,164,253) is 10 minutes closer than Hunters Hill to the CBD and has been undergoing a gentrification in the last decade. It has experienced an even faster pace of value growth, rising 25.7 per cent in the past five years, 10 per cent in the past year, and 5.8 per cent in the last quarter, or about $1,337 per week.

While tight supply and supply and population pressures influence the rate and scale of value growth, affordability appears to be driving values up in areas within reach of investors, leaving more affluent areas to languish as growth rates there slow.

Sydney’s 10 worst performing markets

CoreLogic data shows the ten worst performing house and unit markets have all declined in the last quarter.

In the worst case for houses, that was a 7.5 per cent fall in inner city suburb Forest Lodge, and for units, Tamarama in the eastern suburbs, are down 4.9 per cent.

Waterfronts aren’t typically a negative in terms of dwelling value in Sydney, but five coastal suburbs on the coveted northern beaches and six in the upper end eastern suburbs have all seen median values drop.

The hardest hit in the east is Vaucluse, one of Sydney’s most expensive suburbs, with a median house price of $8,796,050, which has seen the second highest drop of the ten worst performing house markets, shaving $468,240 off house values there in the past year, or $9,004 a week.

The worst performing house market is the coastal Palm Beach, the actual town used TV hit series Home and Away’s fictional Summer Bay, where the median house value of $3,439,715, has come about after a quarterly fall of 3.9 per cent and an annual drop of 11.9 per cent, down in that period by $462,515, or $8,894 a week.

The third and fourth largest annual backward swing in growth for adjacent inner city suburbs Glebe and Forest Lodge are incomparable to Vaucluse and Palm Beach, falling respectively just 1.7 and 1.1 per cent in the last year and shaving $39,805 and $25,389 from their median values.

Both share similar median values of $2,363,923 (Glebe) and $2,269,187 (Forest Lodge) but respectively in the last quarter have seen value drops of 7.1 per cent ($181,536) and 7.5 per cent (183,271).

Units in the eastern suburbs, northern beaches and northern suburbs, typically associated with high value and low volatility, are on the downward slope.

The 10 worst suburbs for performance have median values between $858,781 (Booker Bay) and $1,737, 852 (Clovelly) and all saw falls in the past quarter of between $30,966 (North Willoughby) and $89,929 (Tamarama).

Annual gains were only seen on the list of 10 worst in Roseville (up 0.1 per cent), North Willoughby (3.9 per cent) and Clovelly (13.4 per cent) adding respective capital gains of $1,259, $37,202 and $205,951.

Interestingly, none of the suburbs on either list appeared on API Magazine’s recently published list of Sydney's best investment hotspots.