Melbourne's most popular owner occupier suburbs: RP Data's weekend auction preview

Melbourne's most popular owner occupier suburbs: RP Data's weekend auction preview
Robert LaroccaDecember 7, 2020

The suburbs with the highest proportion of owner occupiers differ in value and tend to have one thing in common – they are well established and in contrast to those proving popular for investors.

Last week’s post revealed that many of the most popular suburbs for investors were those that are more recently developed.

In the inner city the suburbs within a 10 kilometres of the CBD such as Aberfeldie, has the highest proportion of houses with 90% of these owner occupied. Aberfeldie recently became the first million dollar suburb in the city’s west. Strathmore ranked second with owner occupiers accounting for 88.6% of houses. The top five is rounded out by Kew East, Ivanhoe and Malvern.

In the middle ring of suburbs, those between 10 and 20 kilometres of the CBD, there is greater disparity in the prices of suburbs popular with owner occupiers. Eltham North recorded 94.3% of houses as being owned by their occupiers and second on the list, Campbellfield, had 91.4%. Campbellfield is much more affordable with a median house value of $334,601 compared to $646,869 in Eltham North.

Finally, in the outer suburbs the highest proportion of owner occupiers at 95.2% can be found in Montrose. Four of the top five suburbs are in fact are in or near-to the Dandenongs. Second on the list, Mount Evelyn, has 94.1% of houses owned by their occupiers and Warranwood has 93.8%. Fifth on the list, The Basin, recorded 93.7%.

Melbourne suburbs ranked by proportion of owner occupiers | RP Data

There are 809 auctions scheduled this week in Melbourne compared to 837 for the same time last year. The highest number of auctions are expected in the South Yarra with 21 expected.

The auction market is gathering strength with an average clearance rate of 70.6% over the past four weeks.

This is the last week before spring officially starts and the latest research from RP Data shows that there have been, including last week, 26.7% more homes sold at auction than the same time last year.

Importantly there have been almost as many extra sales with 24.7% more sales at auction in Melbourne.

At this stage conditions are well balanced between buyers and sellers across the market.

Time on market results for houses sold at private sale was stable at 44 days over the last week whilst vendor discounting rose from -5.1% to -5.2%.

Key data

  • Clearance rate week ending 31 August: 70.7%
  • Melbourne auctions expected week ending 31 August: 809
  • Melbourne private sales time on market week ending 24 August: 44 days (houses)
  • Melbourne vendor discounting market week ending 24 August: -5.2% (houses)
  • Listings being prepared for market are -0.2% lower in month ending 24 August (seasonally adjusted)

Robert Larocca

Robert Larocca is Victorian housing market specialist for CoreLogic RP Data.

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