Point Piper retains its crown as Australia’s priciest suburb, but Toorak loses its mantle to Deepdene

Point Piper retains its status as the priciest suburb in Australia, recording a $5.21 million median house price during 2011. It came from just the 14 houses, according to RP Data.

Tamarama came in as Australia’s second most expensive suburb, according RP Data research analyst Cameron Kusher.

He notes the number of suburbs with a median house or unit price of $1 million or more fell by 13.8% in 2011 compared with 2010.

A total of 194 suburbs across the country had a median house price of $1 million or more.

Kusher says that to be considered for the list of the top 10 most expensive, the suburb had to have at least 10 sales.

The results also showed that the number of suburbs on the list remains higher than in 2009, however it represented a drop of 31 suburbs on 2010.

During the past 10 years, the number of suburbs with a median house or unit price of $1 million or more has increased from just 43 suburbs nationally to a peak of 225 suburbs nationally in 2010.

Excluding Tasmania and the Northern Territory, each state or territory has at least one suburb.

Back in 2002, only New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory had suburbs with a median price of $1 million or more, with 91% of all suburbs located in New South Wales.

Only 59% of suburbs were in New South Wales this year.

According to Kusher, the results highlight the stronger value growth conditions outside of New South Wales over the past decade.