Revealed: Australia’s best affordable, liveable suburbs – realestate.com.au

Affordable suburbs across Australia are disappearing at breakneck speed, with just one in five still within reach of the average house hunter – the sharpest decline in years.

And in a shocking twist, Sydney now has more affordable suburbs than Brisbane and Hobart, upending long-held assumptions about the country’s most expensive city and the relative affordability of other capitals.

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Sydney units were a revelation in the new data.

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The PRD Smart Moves: Capital City Edition (2H 2025), released on Wednesday, shows that affordability has deteriorated almost everywhere, with some capital cities seeing the number of affordable suburbs halved since the first half of the year, despite three cash rate cuts.

Houses are now almost out of reach in the major capitals, with a brutal 7.8 per cent of Sydney suburbs affordable, 22 per cent in Brisbane, 25.2 per cent in Melbourne and 34.7 per cent in Hobart.

This now makes Brisbane the second least affordable housing capital, overtaking Melbourne for the first time and making units the only lifeline for many homebuyers.

PRD chief economist Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo warned that even unit figures are falling rapidly.

with just over a third of suburbs affordable in Sydney (36.9%), Brisbane (36.7%) and Melbourne (36.2%).

Hobart was a shock: only 28.2 percent of its suburbs are now considered affordable, although it still has the highest percentage of affordable housing areas.

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Smart Moves suburbs for the 2nd half of 2025. Source: PRD.

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Despite declining affordability, the PRD has drawn up a shortlist of suburbs that still meet the requirements for affordability, decent rental yields, liveability and new supply in 2025.

In Brisbane, Slacks Creek topped the list for homes with a median of $760,000, a 2.9% rental yield and 22 new supply, while Logan Central was best for units with a median price of $425,000, a solid 5% yield and 21 new supply.

Sydney’s most affordable suburb was Merrylands, where the average house price is $1.31 million, a yield of 2.9% and a huge supply of 630 new homes. The units were led by Parramatta, where the median is $600,000, a strong yield of 6.1% and a whopping 1,712 new supply pipelines.

Melbourne’s best for average buyers looking for affordable and liveable suburbs was St Albans with a median price of $685,000, yield of 3.7% and new supply of 155%, while Box Hill led units with a median of $540,000, yield of 5.7% and new supply of 379%.

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PRD Real Estate chief economist Dr. Diaswati Mardiasmo.

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Hobart’s top pick for homes was Warrane at an average of $513,500, a 4.3% yield, with 10 new supply, while units were led by New Town at $457,500, a 5.2% yield, with 44 new supply.

Dr. Mardiasmo said the suburbs are the last remaining places where buyers can still find value, as well as lifestyle amenities and development indicators that signal long-term growth.

She warned that buyers are being pushed further outside the 20km radius traditionally used for the report, especially in cities like Brisbane.

“They are significantly harder to find,” she said, adding the report had to remove unemployment rate criteria from the methodology to maintain suburbs with sufficient housing stock planned for 2025.

Dr. Mardiasmo said the Reserve Bank is expected to leave rates unchanged until at least mid-2026, which could push some buyers into “wait and see” mode.

“But that pause could provide a big opening for summer-ready buyers,” she said, as seller confidence increases and more shares flow into the market.

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