This Miranda house sold in late 2025 for $3.962m. The 2020 price was $1.6m.
Homeownership has become an extreme generator of wealth for those lucky enough to have bought their homes before the Covid pandemic hit – especially across Harbour suburbs.
New analysis of PropTrack figures has revealed multiple Sydney pockets where homeowners netted more than $1m in average equity gains over the past five years.
The gains worked out to an average rise of more than $200,000 each year – eclipsing the incomes of many of the country’s highest earning professionals.
Suburbs where home values rose by more than $1m over the half decade period included once blue collar inner west suburb Concord, where the median house price has jumped from $2.05m to $3.12m.
A similar $1m-plus lift in house prices also occurred in nearby inner west suburbs Russell Lea, Drummoyne, Burwood and Strathfield.
MORE: How much your home will be worth by 2028
An East Lindfield family sold their home just before Christmas at auction for $750,000 above reserve. Picture: Rohan Kelly
Other high growth suburbs were Gladesville and Hunters Hill.
There were also pockets further north where homeowners were an average of over $1m richer, including Freshwater, Northbridge, Willoughby, Roseville, North Turramurra and Pymble.
The biggest rises in dollar terms were in already pricey eastern suburbs, showcasing how the wealthy have got even richer over recent years due to the surging property market.
Bellevue Hill’s median house price rose by an average of nearly $5m over the period, while in up-market Vaucluse the five-year rise was just shy of $4m.
The analysis excluded suburbs with less than 50 annual sales, along with suburbs with a high concentration of new housing estates.
MORE: Couple get 19 homes after tradie business goes bust
Source: PropTrack.
It’s worth noting that the last five years has been an extreme period of price rises for the Sydney market, especially over 2021 when prices went up by the third fastest annual margin in close to 150 years.
Part of the continued rise in prices has been the result of chronic housing shortages, building constraints and record population growth, along with a robust city economy.
It comes as Knight Frank research showed Sydney recorded one of the biggest rebounds in super prime residential sales over the closing quarter of 2025.
The firm’s Global Super-Prime Intelligence Q4 2025 report, a quarterly snapshot of US$10m+ global residential sales, found Sydney saw a 58 per cent rise in pricey sales numbers over the fourth quarter of 2025.
Sydney recorded 52 sales of US$10m+ properties, putting it in fifth place among the 12 global cities ranked, and ahead of Miami, London and Paris.
But PropTrack research indicated it wasn’t just homeowners in ultra pricey regions that benefited from extreme home price growth.
MORE: Dumb AI-inspired reno trend devaluing homes
There were multiple middle-income suburbs where house owners pocketed more than $150,000 in equity each of the last five years.
These suburbs included areas in the northwest such as North Ryde, Epping, Ryde and Eastwood. Others were inner west suburb Croydon Park, Blakehurst in the St George area and Allambie Heights, an inland suburb of the northern beaches.
REA Group economist Angus Moore said this week’s RBA decision to hike the cash rate could slow price growth but not substantially.
“Sydney’s fundamentals remain relatively firm,” he said.
“Unemployment is still very low, wages are growing, albeit maybe not as fast as we had seen a few years ago.
“While rates are very likely to rise in the near term, Sydney hasn’t seen the sort of growth that Adelaide, Perth or Brisbane has seen, and so we’re still expecting to see growth in Sydney as a result.”
Source: Analysis of PropTrack median figures.
Canstar data insights director Sally Tindall said: “Tuesday’s rate hike will shave roughly $12,000 off the average Australian’s maximum home-buying budget”.
She said this drop in spending power could impact the market in an indirect way.
“On its own, the February RBA increase is unlikely to be enough to torch home buying budgets across the country, but it could push some buyers to sit on the sidelines for now to see how many more hikes might lie ahead,” Ms Tindall said.
English (US) · 