‘Strong sense of community’: The suburbs people never want to leave
By Sarah Webb
Greater Brisbane’s traditional migrant pockets where a sense of community is cultivated more than the front yard banksia bush have been revealed as the suburbs homeowners are most loath to leave.
New data from CoreLogic calculating the turnover rate of homes sold over the past year and decade shows the once shunned spots where Vietnamese settlers flocked in places like Inala and the small but coveted pockets such as Shorncliffe had the lowest percentage of properties sold annually, which experts say is driving prices north.
A man walks his dogs on the Shorncliffe Pier, one of Greater Brisbane’s most tightly held suburbs.Credit: Adobe Stock
Shorncliffe topped the list over the past year with a low turnover rate of just 2.1 per cent, with Inala and Sheldon (near Cleveland) ranking a joint second at 2.3 per cent. Robertson in Nathan was third at 2.4 per cent.
Over the past decade, Inala took the lead with a mere 3.2 per cent of homes there transacting on average each year. Homeowners in Inala hold on to their properties for an average of 11.7 years.
As a capital, Brisbane clocked an overall turnover rate of 5.4 per cent in the 12 months leading up to December 2023.
Industry experts say a sense of pride and suburb loyalty are the main reasons locals are loath to leave their neck of the woods, with high capital growth and low stock levels another.
Eliza Owen, head of Australian research at CoreLogic, said market conditions also fuel those figures, with homeowners more likely to sell when an area has a price surge. She also pointed to a few exceptions, such as blue-chip pockets where stock is tight and a handful of migrant hot spots where community is king.
In those blue-chip patches such as Shorncliffe, Owen said a combination of high capital growth and low stock levels had led downsizers to avoid selling for fear they wouldn’t be able to buy back into the suburb. And in places like Inala she said the community that expats built was often coveted to the point that many never left.
“We’re seeing empty nesters (in places like Shorncliffe) still staying in the family home,” she said.
“And community plays into that … these are the places that could have been popular with young families about 10 to 15 years ago because they were cheap but have now become more expensive.
″What we often see in the long term is that some suburbs (with a low turnover) aren’t even the most expensive, but they have a big population of people born overseas.
“And when it comes to the migrant communities in Australia, that’s where they like to settle because that’s where their people are.”
Longtime Sandgate local Jacqui McKeering, of Jim McKeering Real Estate, said in their patch, residents indeed never left, with community and exclusivity a big reason for the suburb and neighbouring Shorncliffe seeing low turnover rates. In Sandgate, the turnover rate was 3.3 per cent over the past year.
“Sandgate is a unique suburb because it’s by the bay and there are not many houses in the area and Shorncliffe’s the same,” she said.
“We’re bound by sea and the highway, and we’re not a sprawling suburb, so there’s nowhere for people to move. If they want to stay in the area, they can’t downsize, and as a result, our unit sales are quite high.”
McKeering collected a new record unit price of $930,000 in Sandgate for a three-bedroom abode at 2/30 Second Avenue in March and said the airtight stock levels meant even simple six-pack units now fetched upwards of $650,000.
“There are only 134 units in Sandgate, and only a handful have lifts,” she said.
“But Sandgate has such a strong sense of community and homeliness that people just don’t want to leave.
“What’s unique here is there’s a sense of modesty across the whole suburb. Everyone and anyone can go to the yacht club, and it’s open and friendly.”
McKeering said the flipside to that was rising prices and a tight rental market, with some of the longtime older locals who were still in the rental market being pushed out.
In Shorncliffe, she said, just 15 sales transacted over the past 12 months, down 33.2 per cent annually.
Over in Inala, One Agency’s Cooper Swift said the Vietnamese community had played no small part in building a tight-knit neighbourhood that many homeowners never left. But that sense of exclusivity had fuelled a surge in price growth which recently kickstarted a flurry of listings.
“A lot of owners have seen big prices being achieved … so stock levels are actually pretty good now,” he said.
“We just sold a home at 50 Sittella Street near the Inala Plaza for $702,500, which was a street record. The owners had been there 60 years, and that home was full of asbestos.”
Inala’s median house price has soared 68.5 per cent in five years to reach $615,000 over the 12 months to March, on Domain data, but Swift said buyers would be lucky now to find options under $650,000.
”It’s a big Vietnamese community here and while they are still the main demographic of buyers we are starting to see more buyers from outside that community. People are realising Inala isn’t that bad,” Swift said.
“And people come here from out of suburb just for the food.”