Suburbs in Australia with median house price above $1 million jump to 613 in June

Sydney Suburb — A worker stands behind a grill on one of two buildings under construction in the suburb of North Sydney, Australia, March 1, 2016. Reuters/David Gray

Even if Chinese buyers of apartments in Sydney and Melbourne are abandoning their purchase contracts because of tighter lending rules in Australia and stringent foreign currency regulations in China, the property market down under continues to thrive. One indicator is the number of suburbs where house median prices is higher than $1 million has gone up.

A CoreLogic report says there is a 29 percent rise in number of Australian suburbs with median house prices above $1 million. There are now 613 such suburbs, according to The Australian, with the top 25 mostly found in New South Wales.

Homes of the top three suburbs have median house prices several times over $1 million. In Darling Point, the median price is $6.4 million, in Point Piper it is $6.03 million and in Centennial Park it is $5.9 million.

Sydney Morning Herald explains the surge of home prices to being part of the four-year-long housing boom in Australia. Cameron Kusher, research analyst at CoreLogic, which released the report on Thursday, says across the country, home prices jumped almost 40 percent from a low in May 2012.

Kusher explains the surge to investors who opted to purchase homes because of the low yields from other asset classes such as bonds and shares, as well as the record-low interest rate and favorable tax system for investors in properties. However, the rise in home prices “highlight the bracket creep that has occurred over the housing growth cycle, and how housing affordability in New South Wales (Sydney) and to a lesser degree Victoria (Melbourne) has deteriorated,” notes Kusher.

Reckoned the past three years, the growth in number of suburbs with median prices of homes over $1 million, was at 125 percent. One noticeable trend in the growing number of expensive homes is these were built further away from the city centre, says Kusher.

The only Australian state where there are no suburbs with $1 million median price homes is Tasmania. Not surprisingly, 68 percent of national suburbs with $1 million median price homes are in NSW.

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