How the data works: sources and methods

Sources

Every figure comes from one of these sources, and each page and map shows the month or Census year it reports.

• Sale and rental figures: REA sales data, as shown on realestate.com.au suburb profiles, imported monthly. Houses and units are kept separate, for all bedrooms and for each bedroom count.
• Community figures: ABS 2016 and 2021 Census General Community Profiles, and the ABS 2021 SEIFA indexes. 2016 figures are matched to 2021 suburbs with the ABS correspondence.
• Boundaries: ABS 2021 Suburbs and Localities and Local Government Areas (Australian Statistical Geography Standard).

Median prices and rents

A suburb’s median price is the median sale price REA reports for that suburb, which covers sales over the past 12 months. The median weekly rent is REA’s median rent for the suburb. A median is the middle value: half the sales are above it and half below.

Because the median covers a year of sales, it moves gradually. A single expensive or cheap sale shifts it more in suburbs with few sales.

Price changes over 3, 6 and 12 months

The 12-month change is the change in the suburb’s median price as reported by REA. The 3-month and 6-month changes are calculated by Real Estate Radar: the latest median compared with the suburb’s median three or six months earlier.

All three compare 12-month medians, so they lag behind the market. Monthly price indexes reported in the news measure a different thing (the change in value over a single month) and react sooner. When prices start to fall, the 3-month change usually turns first, then the 6-month, and the 12-month last.

Other figures

Some figures cover the past 12 months and some only the past month; the label next to each figure says which.

• Days on market (12 months): the median number of days properties were listed, across those sold.
• Number sold (12 months): properties sold in the suburb.
• Available (past month): properties listed for sale on realestate.com.au.
• Interested buyers (past month): people seriously interested in the suburb’s listings.
• Rental yield: gross yield, annual rent as a percentage of the property’s value, before expenses.
• Rental figures (days to lease, number leased, rentals available, interested renters) follow the same rules for rentals.

Council areas and neighbouring suburbs

A suburb counts toward a council area (LGA) when at least 40% of it lies inside that council area, so a suburb on a border can count toward two. A council’s median price is the median of its suburbs’ medians, weighted by how many sales each suburb had. Counts such as number sold are shown as the average per reporting suburb.

The neighbour comparison uses two rings around a suburb: adjacent suburbs within 1 km, and the suburbs next to those. Their medians are weighted by sales in the same way, and their counts are averages per suburb.

House price pages

Each city and region page lists every suburb with a reported median for the month. The typical suburb figure is the median of the suburb medians in that place, not a single citywide median. Changes are left out for a suburb with fewer than 10 sales of that property type in 12 months, because a few sales can swing the median.

Map colours

Map colours group suburbs into bands. Local bands are fitted to the state’s own range of values, so differences within one market stand out; national bands use one fixed set across Australia, for comparing cities. When the map is zoomed out to the whole country, national bands are used.

Limits

The figures describe past sales and listings. They are not a valuation of any property and not financial advice. Suburbs with few sales can show large swings, and figures depend on what REA and the ABS report. Read large changes in small suburbs with care.