Last chance: Only 73 cheap city suburbs left where houses are less than $600k

Only 73 suburbs where house prices are less than $600,000 are left in Australia’s capital cities in what is the latest sign of the country’s worsening housing affordability challenges.  

New PropTrack analysis showed there were only 73 suburbs located within Australia’s capital cities where the median house price was $600,000 or less in August.  

It’s a staggering change compared to just 12 months ago, when there were 160 suburbs to make the same list, driven largely by the soaring home prices in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane.  

It comes as the Aussie dream of buying a house with a backyard felt increasingly unreachable for many, with rising house prices making it harder for first-home buyers to get into the market, especially in the capital cities. 

The median price of a house in the capital cities was $1.095 million in August, according to PropTrack Home Price Index.  

Yet the average owner occupier home loan size in Australia was $678,000 in June, according to the latest Australia Bureau of Statistics figures.  

Number of suburbs where median house prices are $600,000 or less

While the ABS average home loan data accounted for houses, apartments and other housing types, it also reflected what many Aussies could likely afford today.  

The vast majority of the 73 suburbs to make the list were in the outer fringes of their respective cities, where housing was typically most affordable.  

The capital city with the most affordable suburbs on the list was Darwin, which had 18 locations where the median house price was $600,000 or less, including Durack, Gunn and Woodroffe. 

At the other end, there were no suburbs in Sydney and Canberra with median house prices valued at $600,000 or less in 2025 or the year prior.  

Perth recorded the biggest annual change in the number of suburbs on the list, falling from 52 suburbs in August 2024 to just 12 this year.  

Suburbs to make the list this year were Greenfields and Mandurah to the city’s southwest, Midland in the northeast, and Armadale and Camillo to the southeast.  

73 capital city suburbs where median house prices were $600,000 or less

In Brisbane, the number of suburbs fell to five in August compared to 29 the same time last year.  

Russell Island and Macleay Island were among Brisbane’s affordable suburbs, as well as Toogoolawah and Laidley in the Ipswich region and Brendale in the northern suburbs.  

Adelaide also saw a significant fall in suburbs, down to just 14 this year from 34 last year.  

All of the suburbs were in Adelaide’s northern suburbs – such as Davoren Park, Salisbury North and Munno Para – except for Woodville Gardens in the west.  

There were 15 suburbs in Melbourne to make the list, the vast majority located in the west such as Wyndham Vale, Melton South and Brookfield. 

In Hobart, there were nine suburbs where median house prices were $600,000 or less, including Glenorchy, Rokeby and New Norfolk.  

It comes as housing affordability in Australia sat at the worst level on record, according to PropTrack’s Housing Affordability Index. 

Published in September last year, the research revealed that households could afford to buy the smallest share of homes on record following a rapid decline in affordability in just a few years. 

Federal, state and territory governments have been trying to make housing more affordable through additional first-home buyer support and efforts to increase the country’s housing supply.  

Most experts agreed increasing housing supply through new home construction was the best fix to Australia’s housing affordability woes, but many were skeptical that enough was being done to move the dial, at least in the short term. 

This means that it will likely become even harder for Australians to buy a house for $600,000 or less in the capital cities in the future, pushing buyers even further away from city centres or into apartments and other more affordable housing types.  

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