Northern Beaches house prices jump $867,500 in a year, rising $417 an hour

PHOTO: Nathan Hampson and his partner Caz Pattison just bought a house in Avalon after ending an almost year long search for a home together. Photo: Peter Rae

The cost of buying a house on Sydney’s northern beaches has jumped by a jaw-dropping $867,500 over the past year, new data reveals,equating to a cool $417 an hour based on a 40-hour working week.

The median house price for the region is now $2,747,500, up 46.1 per cent to the year ending September, the latest Domain House Price Report, released on Thursday shows.

Prior to the pandemic, the median house price in the region was sitting at $1.9 million but a rising tide of cashed-up buyers from across Sydney looking for land and lifestyle has seen both people and prices push north.

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Once snubbed for being too far from the CBD for city workers, the lockdown has given the region an entirely new appeal that ticks all the boxes for the new world order, agents say, in which working from home has become the norm.

It’s just far enough from the city to feel like a world away, yet close enough to complete the commute into work once or twice a week if needed, said Cunninghams Real Estate managing director John Cunningham.

“It’s the fact that people are now not only valuing their internal space in the home, they’re valuing where they live. They want to be on the coast [and] accessible to the harbour, bush and beaches. The transport to the city concept is no longer such a big thing,” he said .

But demand has outstripped supply and caused a meteoric house price rises this year that would not be sustained into next year, he said.