This week’s Property Pulse takes a look at city-wide median dwelling values and compares those to each of the SA4 sub-regions within the capital cities to get a better understanding of typical housing costs from region to region.

Median values and prices are often quoted in the media but what do they actually mean and what are they reflective of?  CoreLogic’s median value is an estimate of the middle value of all residential properties within a market.

The median is useful for understanding the middle of the market, however across the metropolitan area of our cities there is great deal of diversity in housing values. To try and provide a bit more depth, in this week’s Pulse we are looking at median values across the 5 largest capital cities and comparing them to values across the capital city SA4 sub-regions.  In Tas and NT we are comparing capital city values to regional SA4 values.

Sydney’s median dwelling value as at October 2018 was $833,876 and the SA4 region closest in median value was the Inner South West at $840,805. Most of the areas that have a median value lower than that of greater Sydney are located some distance from the city centre while those with higher values are typically the areas closer to the city centre or along the coastline.  The city’s most affordable SA4 region is Outer South West ($602,246) and the most expensive is Northern Beaches ($1,383,461).

Across Greater Melbourne, the median dwelling value is recorded at $665,044. The city’s most affordable region is West ($578,922) and the most expensive region is Inner East ($1,127,558).  Outside of the highly desirable Eastern and Inner regions values are remarkably similar across the remaining Melbourne regions.  In fact, only the Inner East, Inner South and Outer East have median values that are higher than that of Greater Melbourne.

Brisbane’s median dwelling value is currently $491,925.  While that is substantially lower than Sydney and Melbourne you can see that all of the regions relatively close to the city have current median values which are higher than that.  The most expensive region of the city is the West ($659,554) while the most affordable is Ipswich ($350,511).  Only three SA4 regions of the city actually have a median value which is lower than the city-wide median.

Greater Adelaide’s median dwelling value was recorded at $431,554 as at October making it the nation’s most affordable capital city housing market. Throughout the city’s four SA4 regions, Central and Hills is noticeably more expensive than the rest and North is noticeably cheaper. Central and Hills and West are more expensive than the city-wide median and South and North are cheaper.