‘Etched in history’: 29 towns doubled house values in 5 years
House values across the country have doubled in 29 Australian towns since 2020, while a further 50 saw between 70 per cent and 90 per cent price increase. So which suburbs have the biggest growth?
A new Propertyology report showed that house prices across 118 out of Australia’s 140 towns with a population of minimum 15,000 people have increased between 50 per cent and 115 per cent over the past five years.
House prices doubled in 29 towns across Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Western Australia, while a further 50 towns saw their house price surge between 70 per cent and 90 per cent.
Propertyology head of research, Simon Pressley, said the results were historical.
“Ordinarily, a 30 per cent increase in median house values over any five-year period would be considered ‘sound’,” Pressley said.
“Truth be known, the five years ending 2024 is now forever etched in history as an era that produced one of the strongest national property market performances over the 124 years since Federation.”
Pressley said the results were even more impressive since the first two years of the five-year analysis were during the pandemic, which saw Australia’s population decline and very high interest rates.
Out of Australia's 29 best-performing towns, Queensland led the way with 15 towns, including Gatton, Kingaroy, Kilcoy, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Dalby, Chinchilla, Gympie, Yeppoon, Maryborough, Hervey Bay, Gladstone, Warwick, Noosa, and Beaudesert.
Western Australia followed suit with Port Hedland, Mandurah, Busselton, Geraldton, Capel, Bunbury, Margaret River and Harvey, which saw their houses prices double since 2020.
South Australia recorded four towns: Murray Bridge, Mount Gambier, Kadina and Port Pirie, while only Cooma and Broken Hill made the list in NSW.
Pressley said for these townships, local economic conditions were key to increase house values.
“Relatively affordable housing, extremely tight local housing supply, agribusiness and the resources sector are common characteristics among the star property markets,” he said.
Pressley noted that despite the majority of Australian towns being located on the coastline, 11 inland townships were among the nation’s top 3 per cent for capital growth rates.
Additionally, a further 50 towns saw their house value grow between 70 per cent and 90 per cent over the last five years, including Mount Barker and Port Lincoln in South Australia, Sunshine Coast and Townsville in Queensland, Dubbo and Wagga Wagga in NSW, as well as Albury-Wodonga and Burnie in Tasmania.
“A blanket could be thrown over the best-performed capital cities – Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth – who each enjoyed growth of between 77 per cent and 81 per cent,” Pressley said.
While four major states experienced growth over the past five years, the Propertyology report showed that Melbourne was “the second worst property market” behind Alice Springs despite recording high migration rates in 2023 and 2024.
“As for the foreseeable future, all of the wishful thinking and confirmation biases in the world will be completely powerless against these fragile fundamentals for Melbourne’s property market,” Pressley said.