Australia’s Boom Suburbs

Infrastructure investment in some of Australia’s newest developed suburbs is beginning to pay off, with outer suburban areas seeing a dramatic rise in median house prices in the past five years.

Newly developed suburbs in Western Sydney rose the most up a national ranking of Australian suburbs by median house price since 2010.

Where Does your Suburb Rank?

Middleton Grange, Carnes Hill and Oran Park – all near the central western hub of Campbelltown – topped the national list of suburbs with the biggest rise in rank between 2010 and 2015, CoreLogic RP Data supplied to realestate.com.au’s Invest section shows.

Middleton Grange was the most improved suburb, moving 2,592 places from 3,517 to 925 on the full list of suburbs ordered from highest median house price to lowest. The median house price has risen from $235,000 to $785,000 in Middleton Grange in five years.

Camden Park, also in Sydney’s West near Campbelltown, was the tenth biggest mover on the list, but had the highest final ranking of the ten suburbs at 779.

Only three suburbs outside of New South Wales made the national list: St Clair, an eight-year-old suburb in Adelaide’s western middle-ring,Bannockburn, an outer developed suburb 40km south of Brisbane and Crace, a northern suburb of Canberra that was founded in 2009.

Western Sydney Communities Come into their Own

So, what do these new suburbs have that other recently developed areas don’t?

Joe Mazzaferro, Director of United Realty which services Middleton Grange, Carnes Hill, Oran Park, Jordan Springs and Gregory Hills, says the answer to that question boils down to infrastructure.

“They are all new suburbs, so over the five year period there has been a lot of change,” Mazzaferro says. “The key word would be infrastructure.”

The Australian Government has promised to invest more than $2.9 billion in Western Sydney infrastructure projects and upgrades in the next 10 years.

Middleton Grange, the most improved suburb on the list, is close to the M7 freeway which links to the M5, M4 (recently widened thanks to the WestConnex transport project) and M2 freeways.

With those connections in place, residents of Middleton Grange can get to Sydney’s CBD in under 50 minutes despite being more than 50km away.

The suburb was founded in 2005, and is currently serviced by two public schools – Middleton Grange Public School and Thomas Hassall Anglican College.

Campbelltown and Parramatta are both less than 30km drive away for a wider range of shopping and service needs.

Oran Park and Gregory Hills – numbers three and six on the list – are closer still to Campbelltown, around 10km. Oran Park is also home to its own major shopping centre.

“It (Oran Park) was basically a cow paddock that has turned into a mini-city in the past five years,” Mazzaferro says.

Mazzaferro, who has been operating in western Sydney for 25 years, says he predicted massive growth to the area, but wasn’t sure it would come so soon.

“It comes down to the schooling, shopping centres, affordability and the improvement of road infrastructure… it has just made it a lot easier for people to move out here. Sporting facilities are phenomenal, recreation, everything is here.”

Future infrastructure projects on the horizon include a private hospital in Campbelltown, a railway station in Oran Park and Sydney’s second airport in Badgerys Creek.

Due to be in operation by the 2020s, the airport is predicted to generate up to 60,000 new jobs, both in the airport and around the airport site, which will drive further housing demand to Oran Park, Gregory Hill, Middleton Grange and Carnes Hill.

The promise of opportunity has brought an influx of young families to the area, Mazzaferro says.

They are the main demographic purchasing house and land packages, either completed or off-the-plan, from a range of land developers, including Landcom/Mirvac and Stateland Homes.