Bentleigh soon to become a million dollar suburb: RP Data's Melbourne weekend auction preview

The most recent update to the list of million dollar suburbs in Melbourne has seen 50 reach or exceed that mark.

This is an increase of one on last month with Caulfield East joining the list. The median value of a house in that suburb is now $1,002,366. Prior to Caulfield East the other recent additions were Fairfield and Aberfeldie. Those additions meant that Melbourne now has million dollar suburbs in the north, east, south and west of the city.

The list is headed by the usual suspects; Toorak, Deepdene, Canterbury, Kooyong and East Melbourne.  The median house value in Toorak is now $2.85 million and unlike the majority of million dollar suburbs this number has fallen over the last year.

The suburbs next in line do not contain many surprises but can also tell us a lot about housing values in Melbourne.

The suburbs that are within $20,000 of the million dollar mark are Prahran, Carlton North, Port Melbourne, Williamstown and Bentleigh.

Bentleigh is quite typical of the next group of suburbs that will join the list. It would have been quite surprising a few years ago to think of Bentleigh houses costing this much but with 97 selling for over a million in the last 12 months it now a regular feature of the area.

A cursory glance at the ‘for sale’ advertisements shows a suburb undergoing significant change with an increase in multi unit dwellings replacing the older homes on what are now large blocks. These homes coexist with a mixture of styles that are clearly proving to be very popular with buyers.

There are 1,338 auctions scheduled this week in Melbourne compared to 1,270 for the same time last year. The most auctions will be found in Bentleigh East with 29.

Auctions are generally more popular in the most expensive segment of the market and some suburbs have been recording multiple sales in the ultra expensive category.

A review of suburbs ranked by the number of sales valued at more than $2 million over the last year shows that three had more than 100; Brighton, Toorak and Kew. Camberwell, Canterbury, Balwyn, Hawthorn and Malvern had between 50 and 100. Outside of the leafy inner east there were some interesting results in Hampton, Elwood, Ivanhoe and Richmond had between 10 and 20 sales over $2 million.

On a citywide basis, the time on market results for houses sold at private sale was stable at a very low 31 days over the last week and vendor discounting remained stable at -4.8%.

Key data

• Clearance rate week ending 9 November: 65.5%
• Melbourne auctions expected week ending 16 November: 1,338
• Melbourne private sales time on market week ending 9 November: 31 days (houses)
• Melbourne vendor discounting market week ending 9 November: -4.8% (houses)
• Listings being prepared for market are 4.3% higher in month ending 9 November (seasonally adjusted)