What is a ‘bulletproof’ suburb? According to the latest edition of Australian Property Investor, it’s a suburb or town that is immune to drops in home prices despite market booms and busts, the Global Financial Crisis and shifts in supply and demand.
They are most likely to be suburbs or towns that are
- affordable for the income levels of those living in it
- where the essential infrastructure is already in place, and
- where the local economy is diversified and is not relying on one industry to keep it going.
Property expert, John Edwards from Residex tells API that the most affordable housing is where the property is “in the order of about 3.5 times a household’s income.”
API has analysed the data and names 152 locations where property prices have not fallen once in the past 10 years.
While some suburbs might have had the odd month of backward movement, they all rallied to ring in each year stronger than the last.
The median price of housing across the 152 locations is $400,000 which is $42,000 below the Australia-wide median house price.
The state with the most number of bulletproof areas is Victoria with 59, ranging from Frankston South for units to Kangaroo Point (a suburb of Bendigo) for house prices.
“There aren’t many trendy, urban Melbourne suburbs that one might expect would hold steady, but rather the silent achievers that have flown under the radar, shown consistent growth and withstood market volatility to reign bulletproof,” writes deputy editor of API, Shannan Molloy.
While NSW overall has fewer bulletproof areas than Victoria, Sydney suburbs fare better than Melbourne, with Surry Hills, Annandale, Erskineville and Bondi Junction all singled-out – and all notably containing large numbers of units and apartment-style developments. In rural NSW, Wagga Wagga is described as having “titanium prices”.
Queensland had 17 entries in the bulletproof list, including the Brisbane suburb of Stafford for units and regional towns such as Miles, Blackwater and Chinchilla for houses.
“Even the mining town of Moranbah rates a mention, despite significant fluctuations in the past 18 months. It demonstrates the up and down nature of resource markets and indicates that price gains were so significant they’ve offset shorter periods of recent haemorrhaging.”
Some of the bulletproof locations elsewhere around Australia include:
- 3 West Australian entries, including Inglewood in Perth for houses
- 7 places in South Australia in both Adelaide (eg. Kensington Park) and regional SA (Clare, Port Lincoln)
- one in Tasmania at Kings Meadows, a suburb of Launceston
- 13 locations in the Northern Territory, including the Darwin suburb of Lyons for houses and the regional towns of Tennant Creek and Katherine, also for houses
- 6 in Canberra, all located in the outer suburbs of Canberra.
Only one location amongst the 152 had a median property price of more than $1 million – the inner-west Sydney suburb of Summer Hill.
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