Top Performing Suburbs Report identifies suburbs where median value growth across 12 months, 3 years, five years has been higher than 15%. The formula, together with a range of other criteria, identifies suburbs and property types that have demonstrated consistent growth historically. 

“Every suburb in the top 50 national report had median value growth higher than 15%,” said Tim Lawless, Research Director at CoreLogic.  

“The range of growth for 12 months performance was between 41.6% as the highest and 25% at the lowest. The range of median value growth across 5 years for these suburbs was 126.3% and 31.1%.”

The report was created by analysing the house and unit markets across more than 12,000 suburbs across Australia. The initial task was to identify areas that had a reasonable volume of sales to ensure the suburbs put forward were not volatile markets. As such, suburbs with fewer than 50 house or unit sales were removed, as were suburbs that did not record median value growth across 12 months, 3 years, 5 years or 10 years. 

Suburbs were then ranked from highest to lowest by their median value performance over the past 12 months to one decimal point. Where suburbs had identical growth levels, the ranking next looked at 3 year growth. The Top Performing Suburbs report is available at national and state levels. 

Victoria dominated the national list with 39 of the top 50 suburbs while there were seven from NSW and two in Queensland. There was just one suburb in Tasmania and one in WA. 

“These results are in alignment with the performance of the housing market generally being a two speed market of Victoria and NSW performing more strongly than the rest of the country,” Mr Lawless said. 

Housing market suburbs made up 41 of the top 50, while just nine suburbs were based on capital growth for units.

Houses in Cottesloe in Perth were the surprise inclusion in the national rankings as the lone WA suburb to make the cut. Cottesloe was ranked fourth with 12 month median value growth of 38.7% and a median house value of $2,308,698. Mr Lawless said while the Perth market had under-performed as a whole compared to the eastern states, Cottesloe demonstrated that desirable locations with quality homes at the premium end of the market would often buck general trends. 

Top 5 Performing Suburbs by Consistent Median Value Growth

Median house values in the report ranged from $383,348 in Melton, Victoria to $3,095,398 in Cremorne, NSW. Median unit values ranged from $369,773 in Cranbourne, Vic to $801,754 in Byron Bay, NSW.

The highest frequency value range in this report is between $503,713 and $599,517. There were 16 suburbs in this range.