Where are Australia's million dollar suburbs?

A combination of buoyant market conditions and low interest rates is largely responsible for driving up property values over the past 12 months. 275 suburbs now have a median house value of more than $1 million. For units, the news isn’t that exciting; just eight suburbs share a median unit value of more than $1 million.

Topping the list for houses is Sydney’s Point Piper with houses recording a whopping median value now sitting at $5,817,581. Other Sydney suburbs making it to the top ten included: Woolwich, Darling Point, Centennial Park, Cremorne Point, Bellevue Hill. Peppermint Grove in WA, and Victoria-based suburbs, Deepdene and Toorak, also made the cut to the top 10.

Of the 212 suburbs with a median price of at least $1 million, 56% were in Sydney in New South Wales and 20% of suburbs were located in Victoria. These were then followed by Western Australia (12%), Queensland (6%), South Australia (3%), Australian Capital Territory (2%) and Northern Territory (0.5%).

Across council areas, Ku-ring-gai in Sydney has recorded the greatest number of suburbs in the million dollar club with 15 suburbs having a median price of $1 million or greater.  Other council areas with a substantial number of $1 million plus suburbs include: North Sydney (12), Woollahra (10) and Brisbane, Canada Bay and Boroondarra (each nine).

Although with just eight in the list of units where values reached over the one million dollar mark, it was Sydney that again scored top results in the list of best performers by exceeding the million dollar value mark. Included in the list of Sydney suburbs are Dawes Point, Point Piper, Darling Point, The Rocks, Millers Point and Huntleys Cove and Milsons Point. Brisbane riverside suburb Tennyson was the only other suburb outside of Sydney to make the top.

Just 12.4% of all capital city houses and 1.7% of regional houses sold in 2013, transacted for more than $1 million. For units it was 4.6% of capital city sales and 2.3% of regional unit sales which had a $1 million price tag.

Despite such significant media reporting about homes over $1 million, these actually account a very small portion of the overall sales within the market.

At a national level, 275 suburbs (or 6.1% of suburbs with a reported median value), have a median house value which is greater than or equal to $1 million. Nationally, only eight suburbs have a median unit value which is greater than $1 million, representing 0.4% of all suburbs.

In 2005, just 78 suburbs across the country had a price tag of $1 million or more.  In just five years, the number of $1 million plus suburbs has increased by 172%.  Victoria has recorded the greatest increase in suburbs with a $1 million price tag over the five years, increasing by 950% during the period.

The figures vary somewhat when looking exclusively at the capital city markets. It’s important to remember that home values tend to be much higher in the capital cities and this is where the bulk of the national population resides.

For houses, there are 271 capital city suburbs or 12.0% of all suburbs that have a median value of more than $1 million. For units, 0.6% or 8 capital city suburbs have a median value of more than $1 million. Across individual cities the current results are also quite different.

For houses, almost one in every four Sydney suburbs has a median house value of more than $1 million, in Perth the figure is 12% of suburbs and in Melbourne around one in 10 suburbs has a median value of more than $1 million. Very few suburbs have a median unit value of more than $1 million, only eight suburbs nationally. Seven of these eight suburbs are in Sydney with the remaining one in Brisbane.

Five years ago, around 5% of all suburbs nationally had a median house value which was more than $1 million and for units, 0.4% of all suburbs held a median value which was more than $1 million. By way or proportion, the five year change has been minimal with a median unit value of more than $1 million but a full one percentage point increase in the proportion of suburbs where houses have a median value of more than $1 million.

Suburbs where the median value is in excess of $1 million are quite small. However, as home values increased over the past five years so too has the number of suburbs.

With low mortgage rates and relatively high levels of buyer demand we would expect the proportion of suburbs with a median value of more than $1 million to trend higher throughout 2014. It is important to note that outside of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth suburbs with a median value of more than $1 million are a rarity.

Cameron Kusher is senior research analyst at RP Data.