‘Secret' inner Sydney suburb where buyers get better value
PropTrack data has revealed the suburb Marrickville has emerged as one of the best value locations for house hunters wanting properties within a 10km radius of the CBD.
The median house price is high at just over $2 million but it's the next cheapest areas after a cluster of suburbs directly under one of the main flight paths of Sydney Airport: St Peters, Tempe and Sydenham, along with Mascot.
But local selling agents and buyer's agents alike have revealed it's not just the prices that make the area stand out: blocks tend to be bigger than neighbouring suburbs.
MORE: 150 buyers for each home: house threat coming
MORE: Scott Cam slams 'whingeing' Block couples
Amenities in the area are also among the best in Sydney, with the suburb benefiting from proximity to multiple retail, transport and education hubs.
Local resident Monica Wulff is preparing to sell her home of four years and lifted the lid on why she believes the inner west sleeper suburb has become so appealing.
'It still feels a bit like a secret,' Ms Wulff said. 'Everyone always knew about Newtown. But Marrickville? People are just starting to catch on.'
Her home on Philpott St – tucked in one of Marrickville's quieter residential pockets – boasts a modern kitchen, generous backyard and open-plan living, with private laneway access, among other things.
MORE: Meet the 4yo Aussie homeowner with a $1m portfolio
MORE: Crowd pressure homebuyer to pay $550k extra
But Ms Wulff said it's the suburb's blend of convenience and quiet that buyers should be paying attention to.
'We didn't find you could get that kind of value even in places a little further out like Leichhardt,' she said.
'You step outside and there are breweries, theatres, restaurants – and kids getting face paint at the park. It's got culture and it's got convenience.'
Ms Wulff's selling agent Adrian Tsavalas, the director of Adrian William said: 'Most buyers we're working with are trying to secure the best property within their budget, as close to the city as possible, that's why Marrickville is such a hit with young families.'
MORE: Fallout from RBA's huge rates move exposed
MORE: Epic towers set to reshape Sydney skyline
PropTrack data confirms Marrickville remains one of the most affordable suburbs within 10km of the Sydney CBD, despite offering near-identical proximity, connectivity and lifestyle to many more expensive areas.
With three train stations, bus links and the upcoming Metro line, Marrickville's transport network now rivals some of the city's priciest blue-chip postcodes.
Ms Wulff and her husband moved into their Philpott St home during the peak of Covid – navigating masked inspections, screaming online auctions, and agents openly mocking desperate buyers.
'Buying real estate is never enjoyable,' she said. 'But back then? It was brutal.
'There was one auction where agents were laughing at how badly people wanted the place.'
MORE: Couple's bold move nets them record home price
MORE: Sydney tenant slugged with $520k bill
'But we loved the home we eventually found: the renovation, the energy, the flow of the home. It was move-in ready and it just felt right.'
Four years later, the family is upgrading to a multi-generational home with Wulff's elderly father-in-law, but said its bittersweet leaving Marrickville behind.
'We've lived in the inner west for about 20 years and this house was everything we needed – room for prams, bikes, tools,' she said. 'It gave us flexibility and freedom, and we were still right near the city.'
She said the house is perfect for a growing family who refuses to trade lifestyle for a longer commute.
'We didn't want to give up that youthful vibe just because we had kids,' she said. 'Marrickville gave us both space and culture.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
SBS Australia
15 minutes ago
- SBS Australia
For the girls who feel too much
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News Interviews and feature reports from SBS News Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves. Ease into the English language and Australian culture. We make learning English convenient, fun and practical.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
MoneyTalks: Why Cygnet Capital is backing Heavy Rare Earths and critical minerals
MoneyTalks is Stockhead's drill down into what stocks investors are looking at right now. We tap our list of experts to hear what's hot, their top picks, and what they're looking out for. Today we hear from Cygnet Capital founding director Jonathan Rosham. Cygnet Capital describes itself as a hybrid between a traditional stock broking firm (with a limited number of high-net worth clientele) and a fund manager. The privately owned boutique investment and advisory group has been around for 25 years, focused on two sweet spots of the ASX – tech and resources micro-cap stocks. Within the resources space, Cygnet Capital is particularly bullish on gold, silver, copper and critical minerals, with the latter topical of late following executive orders from US President Donald Trump urging an immediate boost in domestic mineral production. In June, Trump announced a deal with China to resume exports of rare earth minerals and magnets after a two-month period of severe export restrictions that had disrupted critical supply chains across the automotive, robotics and defence industries. Those export restrictions amplified the urgency for countries to secure alternative, domestic or allied sources of supply. At the same time, demand for critical minerals is skyrocketing but supply isn't keeping pace, raising alarm bells for future shortages. Top picks Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) Cygnet Capital assisted HRE with its acquisition of three assets from Havilah Resources (ASX:HAV) in one of the world's premier uranium producing jurisdictions, South Australia. Australia leads globally in uranium reserves and ranks fourth in production, with South Australia standing out as the core of the nation's uranium sector, housing 80% of its economic demonstrated resources and close to a quarter of the world's uranium supply. Rosham reckons the market is unaware of the potential world-class characteristics at Radium Hill and believes that the best place to find economic deposits are next to old ones. 'We note the historical mining undertaken at Radium Hill as a good indication of the potential,' he said. 'The historical information on Radium Hill highlights the contents of the tailings of mining from Radium Hill at Port Pirie, which gives valuable insight of the waste material from mining uranium in the 1950s/'60s. 'It shows extremely high quantities of scandium and rare earths,' he said. 'There were a number of studies carried out in the '90s and focused on extracting the scandium and rare earths but were constrained at the time with prices and capital. 'Now, in 2025, we are in a very different environment both in prices for the critical minerals and the future demand.' Most importantly, Rosham says HRE already knows what is in the rocks at Radium Hill, which is a massive advantage for any junior. 'Their job now is certainly to go and drill and find sufficient enough quantities to be able to potentially prove up an economic deposit and build a mine,' he said. 'The interesting part is that 50 to 60 odd years ago the market for those materials – being a lot of the lanthalites and scandium – was very different in that now, they are in demand. 'Radium Hill has been totally overlooked from a critical mineral point of view, and the company does have to do some work on the metallurgy, but metallurgy could really unlock the scandium potential,' he added. 'We do think there's a treasure chest there, they need to drill but we feel like the company has a nice head start.' Cygnet Capital is also backing Warriedar, having recently acted as one of two joint lead managers, alongside Bell Potter, in a $20 million capital raise. The firm was drawn to the company based on the scale of its Ricciardo mine, the antimony potential and the large, underexplored tenement package. 'The previous owner encountered a problem with the ore, which eventually sent it broke – the company focused on oxide material at Ricciardo, with the transition and primary sulphides mineralisation not systemically explored,' he said. 'As a consequence of that, the ground was totally underexplored, and we took the view internally and came up with a valuation well in excess of 20 cents and still maintain that view today. 'Warriedar has been well-funded to go and drill and create value for shareholders, and we think the takeover bid by Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) has come in at an interesting time – we think there's more to potentially happen there before that game plays itself out.' In May, the company announced what it believes is Australia's largest open-pit antimony resource at Ricciardo, totalling 12.2Mt at 0.5%. Warridar also reported a 107% increase in the projects' total resource estimate to 1.96Moz of gold equivalent at an average grade of 2.5g/t. Carnaby Resources (ASX:CNB) A Queensland copper play, Carnaby – like many players up near Mt Isa – took a bit of a hit following Glencore's news that it was going to close its smelter. But Rosham likes the look of the stock due to its substantial resource base and highly attractive portfolio, including the recently acquired Trekelano copper-gold deposit from Chinova Resources. Trekelano is within a 20km radium of Carnaby's Greater Duchess project, making it a highly complementary acquisition. 'Trekelano looks really interesting… it was an old mine, high-grade and Glencore previously owned it,' he said. 'We started taking a position in the company about 12 months ago but they recently reported an intersection of 150 metres at well over 1% of copper, which says to me that the project has a lot more scope and scale than perhaps the market is giving it credit for. 'The company is set to benefit if the government help Glencore out with the smelter up in Mt Isa, they will benefit a lot,' he said. 'They are looking to get into production, they have access to all transport, it's a low capital cost to get into production and if copper continues going the way it is, this is one company that could definitely bubble from here.' Petratherm (ASX:PTR) Cygnet Capital identified Petratherm before it made its high-grade, titanium-rich heavy minerals sands discovery at the Rosewood and Claypan prospects within the Muckanippe project in South Australia's Gawler Craton. Petratherm has quickly become a hot topic among fundies and investors, who see the $130 million explorer as a possible takeover target for heavyweights like Iluka Resources (ASX:ILU), Tronox Minerals, or even Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO). Muckanippie is yet to host a resource estimate and unlike Iluka's nearby Jacinth Ambrosia mine is not expected to be a major zircon producer, but early drill hits suggest it's rich in titanium-dioxide-bearing material, which should translate to a premium basket price. Titanium dioxide is a key material for paint pigments, but is also a critical mineral used in welding, aerospace, aviation and defence. Rosham likes Petratherm for the titanium content at Muckanippie. New drilling results include 9m at 15.1% heavy minerals (HM) from 10m, including 26.4% HM from 12m and 12m at 12.7% HM from 4m, including 7m at 17.1% HM from 5m. 'Obviously it's just huge grade, there's still a lot of work to do but that grade is amazing if they can actually come up with some continuity,' he said. 'The material looks like it's a direct shipping ore, high titanium content, very big scale at surface, very low strip – it's a world-class discovery, we think there's massive scale and fairly easy to treat. 'We definitely think it's a takeover target for one of the big boys who would be paying a lot of attention to what they are doing,' Rosham added. 'They are currently in the process of drilling, they are going to do some metallurgical testwork, which we will hear about shortly, but if they continue with what they doing and can demonstrate the scale which we think they can, we can see multiples from here.'
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Geelong CBD freehold offers multiple income options
Geelong's emerging laneways could become the key to unlocking the value of a CBD landmark formerly home to Duffs Jewellers. The two-storey freehold is up for grabs with a new expressions of interest campaign to test the market for city centre real estate. Colliers, Geelong agents Jonathon Lumsden, Ned Tansey and Jackson Carrick are handling the sale for 134 Moorabool St, Geelong, with offers closing August 14. Mr Lumsden said price expectations were $2m-plus. The 180sq m ground floor comprises retail and office space, along with amenities and the original strongroom. The first floor has been converted to a luxury four bedroom, three-bathroom apartment, flooded with natural light from an atrium. The property is opposite Geelong's Bright & Hitchcocks building where developer Hamilton Group has started a multimillion dollar redevelopment. 'The owners ran their own business from there – they've closed that office down and are using it for storage themselves while they were running upstairs as their Airbnb,' Mr Lumsden said. 'Since they've got other interests, now is the time to divest.' The building offers the potential for a new owner to create dual income streams, and activate frontages to Moorabool St and Shorts Place at the rear, Mr Lumsden said. 'It also gives someone the potential to reconfigure the ground floor so they could activate a space with direct access of Moorabool St, and then activate a space that's accessed off Shorts Place,' Mr Lumsden said. Geelong developer Bill Votsaris has already unlocked Shorts Place for neighbouring projects, including a 24-hour Anytime Fitness gym. 'I think there's some appeal to that, to create those dual access points. Does that mean someone looks to do something more retail on the Moorabool St frontage and then more hospitality from Shorts Place? 'There's a few different things you can those around and meanwhile you can maintain that Airbnb, whether it's leased out through Airbnb or you put a long-term tenant in there.' Mr Lumsden said one potential buyer had flagged reconfiguring the first floor into commercial office space and then look to activate the retail space on the ground floor. 'You could easily give the ground floor a facelift. That's a pretty simple process.' Interest has been from parties in Geelong and Melbourne, Mr Lumsden said. 'I must say the interest that's coming through are generally parties that we've seen look at other options in the CBD. 'I think people can still see the CBD is going through a bit of adjustment and they can see the investment that other landowners are investing in the CBD. 'Opposite with Cam Hamilton's development and with what Bill Votsaris is doing in Little Malop St, there's good stories to tell within that precinct. 'We got through property cycles, Moorabool St is the main thoroughfare running north-south to Belmont and attracts an enormous amount of traffic and with the property cycle we're going through at the moment where you're not buying at the peak of the market, I believe there's long-term growth to get out of it.'
