“There is a vast difference in performance,” she said. “It does really showcase Sydney’s love affair with houses.”
Powell has forecast Sydney’s median house price to reach $2 million in early 2027.
Sydney’s median unit price has risen 18 per cent over the past decade, but house prices have jumped 67 per cent in that time.Credit: Louise Kennerley SMH
Another reason for the price divergence is the increased supply of units relative to standalone dwellings amid steady change in the character of residential development across Sydney over the past two decades.
The share of detached homes in Sydney fell from 61 per cent to 56 per cent between 2011 and 2021 census figures show. But the share of units and apartments rose from 26 per cent of all dwellings to 31 per cent during that period.
The Minns government is overhauling planning laws in NSW in a bid to further ramp up the supply of medium and high density dwellings in Sydney.
Rawnsley says the growing supply of units has helped moderate price growth for that style of dwelling.
“We’ve had more apartments come into the market in Sydney because there’s demand for it,” he said. “But at the same time there’s been a relative scarcity of those detached homes with more and more people bidding over them.”
The price premium for houses over units is much higher in Sydney than other cities; across Australia’s eight capitals the median house prices was only 75 per cent higher than the median unit price in the September quarter. (The median price is the middle value of all sales.)
Even though unit price growth has been more subdued than house price growth in Sydney recently, the Domain figures show 63 suburbs in the city had a median unit price over $1m in the September quarter (suburbs with fewer than 50 sales were not included).
Barangaroo easily topped the list for Sydney’s highest median unit price at $4.5m followed by Darling Point ($2.95m), Milsons Point ($2.17m) and Double Bay ($1.93m).
Three Sydney suburbs moved into the $1m unit “club” in the September quarter – Crows Nest (up 11 per cent to $1.2m), Paddington (up 9 per cent to $1.05m) and St Ives (up 4 per cent to $1.01m)
Sydney’s least expensive unit market (with over 50 sales) in the September quarter was Mount Druitt with a median price of $420,000.
