Only one out of 100 apartments has four bedrooms in Melbourne’s CBD: Robert Larocca

Only one out of 100 apartments has four bedrooms in Melbourne’s CBD: Robert Larocca
Robert LaroccaDecember 7, 2020

It will come as no surprise that there are very few three or four bedroom apartments in the CBD, Docklands or Southbank.

Developers frequently cite market demand as the reason why they don’t build larger high-density dwellings.

A review of data from the apartments advertised for sale in the past two years shows that the size of dwellings does vary between the three inner city suburbs of Melbourne, Docklands and Southbank.

Across those three suburbs, 43 of the 3,966 homes had four or more bedrooms.

Three bedroom apartments where rare but slightly more plentiful with 434 advertised for sale. They were mostly found in Southbank and Docklands.

Almost one in two apartments in the suburb of Melbourne were one bedroom but they are far less plentiful in Docklands and Southbank, accounting for around 25% of the housing.

It is interesting to see the differences in the type of apartments between Melbourne and Docklands/Southbank.

From the perspective of the number of bedrooms Docklands and Southbank are the home to larger apartments than Melbourne. One-bedroom apartments accounted for 23% of apartments in Docklands and 28% in Southbank. In the suburb of Melbourne the comparable number is 47%.

Clearly, developers are providing different dwellings in different suburbs. This is also obvious when a comparison is made to a very different apartment market such as bayside Brighton where 9% had one bedroom, three bedroom apartments comprised 34% of the market, and two bedroom apartments were the majority at 53%.

What is also clear is that if you are looking for a four bedroom unit then it will take a very long time.

Key points

  • Across 2013 and 2014 only 1% of apartments advertised for sale in Melbourne had four bedrooms
  • Two bedroom apartments are more likely to be found in Southbank and Docklands than Melbourne
  • In Brighton only 9% of apartments had one bedroom

Robert Larocca

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

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