Kariong records greatest house price rise in region

Kariong has been named as the Central Coast suburb which has experienced the greatest rise in house prices over the past year.

Analysis of the latest valuation data, as reported by realestate.com, shows Kariong topping the regional statistics, with a median house price of $906,000, representing a 17.7 per cent rise over the previous year.

While values in many Central Coast suburbs grew over the past year, Kariong was the hotspot – with stronger growth than all other suburbs in the region.

The PropTrack data highlights the suburb with the strongest growth in values over the past year in each statistical area 4 (SA4) region, which are geographical areas defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics with a minimum population of 100,000.

In dozens of top-performing suburbs, surging house prices have boosted values for property owners but made it harder for house hunters to buy in, especially in markets where demand outweighs supply, realestate.com says.

Interestingly Kariong’s growth was on a par with Sydney’s over-achieving suburbs which jumped in value by 10-20 per cent.

PropTrack senior economist Eleanor Creagh said the suburbs where values rose the most in each region reflected stretched affordability following the jump in interest rates over the past two years.

“More affordable regions held up better in 2022 when interest rates were first rising, and in 2023 a lot of relatively affordable suburbs maintained this out-performance as interest rates continued to rise and housing affordability remained at multi-decade lows,” she said, as reported on realestate.com.

The data uses PropTrack’s automated valuation model (AVM) to determine a suburb’s median property value.