Which suburb saw over 300% capital growth in the last 10 years?

Northern NSW’s popular tourist hotspot Byron Bay tops the list, with the coastal suburb recording a whopping 361.5 per cent or or $2.35 million price growth since 2013. 

Coming in second place is the North-East Victorian suburb of Bright, where the price of an average house has risen by 257 per cent or $930,000 in the last 10 years. 

Rounding out the top three is Suffolk Park in NSW, where the median house price has risen 256.1 per cent over the past 10 years to $2.1 million.

PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said that while there’s been “a lot of ups and downs” in the real estate market over the last 10 years, the long-term view of housing data indicated “Australian property continues to deliver strong returns”. 

“Average national house prices are up 83 per cent over the last decade. These top suburbs have obviously performed substantially better than the national average,” he stated. 

But, the expert noted the list also revealed how different property markets across the country performed, highlighting that “there’s a big divergence between outcomes, particularly over these long periods of time”. 

“If you look across cities, there’s quite large divergences. But then even if you narrow down the list, there are suburbs that have really come to the fore and outperformed.”

“Picking the right location, even if property does generally well, can make a huge difference,” he stated. 

The report highlighted that houses in lifestyle locations have been the biggest movers as property seekers increasingly sought coastal or park-side living.

“Over the longer term, on average, we’ve seen places like Sydney and Hobart be the big star performers of the last 10 years, [while] coastal areas, particularly Northern NSW, South-East Queensland, have done particularly well. 

That’s not to say that’s where all the suburbs are from, but those parts of Australia have certainly seen a big boom,” Mr Ryan commented. 

NSW dominated the list with eight entries, including Berry (up 255.9 per cent to $2,100,000), Kingscliff (up 237 per cent to $2,005,000), Burradoo (up 233.3 per cent to $2,900,000), Narrawallee (up 228.1 per cent to $1,148,500), Copacabana (up 221.7 per cent to $1,930,000), and Glenorie (up 220.0 per cent to  $2,800,000). 

Queensland’s Buddina, on the Sunshine Coast, also made the list, with 234.9 per cent growth over the past 10 years. Currently, the median price of houses in the coastal suburb is now $1,650,000, representing a staggering $1,157,250 price tag increase. 

The economist provided some insight as to why these areas delivered strong capital growth in the last decade.

“I think the thing that all these have is that [these are] lifestyle, get-away, [and] holiday locations that have really come into people’s consciousness,” Mr Ryan stated. 

“I think 10 years ago, if you talked about some of these places, places like Kingscliff or even Berry to some extent, they wouldn’t have been as well known. And so, part of the reason they’ve done so well is a) they’d had all the hallmarks of things that people very much like about a property and b) they’re places that have been really up and coming in the past decade,” he added. 

Looking forward, he said the big question for the property market in the next 10 years is the extent to which changes in trends throughout the pandemic will continue. 

“I think the pandemic showed that more people can work and live in more remote locations. And so the big question will be, what will be that next Byron Bay or those lifestyle locations that will draw in people’s attention? 

“Or will we go back to the pre-pandemic growth where it was very city-centric. So Sydney and Melbourne in particular. And now in Queensland, in Brisbane, it’s growing so quickly,” he commented. 

Mr Ryan also offered up his own view, forecasting that “it would be a bit of both”. 

“I would say that Sydney would likely continue to start to perform really well again as we saw before the pandemic. But I think that lifestyle locations and regional Australia could permanently perform better than it has been,” he concluded.