Sydney’s great house and unit divide

A multimillion-dollar property divide has emerged across Sydney, with the difference between house and unit prices in some suburbs now enough to buy multiple homes in other parts of the city. New realestate.com.au data shows unprecedented levels of price decoupling between house and unit medians across 20 Sydney suburbs with the greatest current price gaps – representing Sydney’s most expensive and affordable sectors. The chasm between these unit and house medians more than doubled between 2016 and 2026, where house values significantly outpaced units over the 10-year period, widening prices for prospective buyers. This was most significant in premium coastal and eastern suburbs including Bellevue Hill, Vaucluse, and Tamarama where the average house-to-unit price gap expanded from $2.5m in 2016 to over $6.25m today. Bellevue Hill recorded the most extreme divide, where the median gap to purchase a unit over a house exploded from $3.34m in 2016 to a whopping $9.425m in 2026. The trend was equally pronounced in middle-ring western and hills district markets such as Strathfield, Castle Hill, and Westmead, where the average price gap widened from $760,775 to $1.7m. In North Rocks, the ...