Despite rising property prices and a trend towards smaller lots, the Australian dream of an affordable freestanding house on a quarter-acre block is not dead – but you might have to look further afield to find it.
The latest data from PropTrack shows that buyers seeking an affordable property with a land size of about a quarter of an acre in one of the capitals will have the most luck looking at the urban fringe.
An analysis of sales data shows that there are plenty of suburbs where a quarter-acre is the typical block size, but the cheapest of these suburbs — most with median house prices under $1 million — are on the outskirts of the capitals.
That’s partly because a quarter-acre block, which equates to just over 1000 square metres, is huge by today’s standards, meaning city buyers are unlikely to find one for cheap anywhere near the CBD.
A quarter-acre is more …