Melbourne $1 million plus buyers' club secure 18% of sales
By the end of last year, 59 Melbourne suburbs had median house prices of more than $1 million, in particular, suburbs in inner and middle Melbourne, notes Enzo Raimondo, the chief executive of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria.
"Three suburbs – Northcote, Richmond and Strathmore - had million-dollar medians for the first time in the December quarter," said Raimondo.
"Flinders, benefiting from the opening of the Peninsula Link, also joined the list."
The sales have gained momentum into 2015, with Northcote's most recent sale reported on realestateview.com.au last weekend at $1.01 million (pictured above).
But how many buyers are actually paying more than $1 million for our homes?
In the three months to the end of December last year there were 15,127 house sales across Victoria, with 2769 of those at or above $1 million, he said.
That represents 18% of sales.
In dollar terms their total value was $4.4 billion - around 40% - of the $10.7 billion worth of property sold.
"It’s no great surprise that most of these were in Melbourne’s sought-after inner suburbs, close to infrastructure such as public transport and to the CBD, where the most million-dollar suburbs are located," said Raimondo.
"There were 4,572 sales during those three months in the inner suburbs and more than a quarter of them – 1,433 – were for $1 million or more.
"It is also not surprising that most of these million-dollar sales were auctions sales – after all, Melbourne’s inner and middle suburbs have given rise to its reputation as Australia’s auction capital, while auctions in outer suburbs and regional Victoria have gained popularity more recently.
"While just over a quarter of all sales in inner Melbourne were private sales, only 274 of the one million-dollar-plus sales were private sales."
He said in the middle ring suburbs – that is, those between 10 km and 20 km from the centre of the city – there were 5199 transactions with more than one fifth of them, 1081, for $1 million or more.
Melbourne’s outer suburbs - often thought of as comprising mostly affordable homes - had 226 sales worth more than $1 million in the December quarter with 29 such sales in regional Victoria.
"So far this year Victorians have spent $5,799 million buying homes – with about $2,430 million, or a bit less than half of that total – on million-dollar-plus homes," he concluded.