Australia’s property market is facing an acute supply lockdown in its most established neighbourhoods, as new property insights unmask an elite “20-Year Club” – the highly coveted suburbs where homeowners dig their heels in for up to double the national average.
Fresh market data tracking the 12 months ending May 2026 reveals that while the typical national holding period sits at 11.7 years for houses and 10.3 years for units, a select handful of tight-knit communities are shattering those baselines, with average tenures frequently exceeding two decades.
Leading the charge nationally for houses is Clarinda in Melbourne’s southeast, boasting an astonishing average hold time of 23 years.
For units, the harbourside enclave of Cremorne Point in Sydney takes the crown, with an average holding period of 18.3 years.
Inside the ’20-year club’
According to REA Group Economist Luc Redman, pinpointing a single catalyst for these extreme holding patterns is difficult, but the data points to a perfect storm of demographics, property type, and neighborhood stability.
“There tends to be a few factors,” Mr Redman said. “The main one is that there tends to be a higher proportion of owner-occupiers within the suburb.
“Particularly for houses, they tend to have more houses than units… You have people who have cemented their family home there and aren’t looking to upgrade.”
He explains that these suburbs are typically located in the middle-ring of Australia’s largest capital cities, characterised as stable, upper-middle-class communities rather than ultra-luxury enclaves.
“Families might have gone out there decades ago because it was a bit more affordable to purchase a property back then, they had more space, and they’ve essentially held onto that asset while the area has densified around them,” he said.
“These households also tend to be less economically mobile, meaning they are less inclined to uproot and move across the country for employment opportunities.”
The data also yielded some geographical surprises, completely shutting out several states from the top tiers.
Despite intuition suggesting long-term residency in quieter states, not a single suburb from Western Australia, South Australia, or Tasmania cracked the national Top 10 list for houses or units.
National Top 5 Suburbs with the Longest Average Holding Time
Houses
- Clarinda, VIC — 23.0 years (Median Price: $1,110,000)
- Mont Albert, VIC — 21.1 years (Median Price: $2,406,000)
- Hurlstone Park, NSW — 20.4 years (Median Price: $2,415,000)
- Bexley North, NSW — 20.2 years (Median Price: $1,890,000)
- Greenfield Park, NSW — 20.0 years (Median Price: $1,341,000)
Units
- Cremorne Point, NSW — 18.3 years (Median Price: $2,030,000)
- Waverton, NSW — 17.0 years (Median Price: $1,400,000)
- East Melbourne, VIC — 16.6 years (Median Price: $695,000)
- Middle Park, VIC — 16.5 years (Median Price: $835,000)
- Black Rock, VIC — 16.0 years (Median Price: $1,120,000)
The Budget effect: Will tax changes lock down supply further?
The data emerges amidst major waves in the real estate sector following recent changes to property tax introduced in the federal Budget, which tilt negative gearing and Capital Gains Tax (CGT) perks toward new builds.
While industry speculation suggests these changes might force homeowners to cling to established properties for even longer, Mr Redman suggests the “20-Year Club” will remain largely insulated from policy shifts.
“Because these long-hold suburbs tend to be heavily driven by owner-occupiers in their primary residences, they don’t pay CGT anyway and they can’t negative gear.”
Instead, he predicts the budget’s impact will ripple through different sectors.
“These changes will obviously affect investors more. Because their existing tax perks are grandfathered, they’re probably not going to be inclined to jump the gun and offload them. You would probably see them hold a little bit longer, but it will be in that medium or lower-end unit market where we might see time extensions, rather than the 20-year club suburbs.”
At the polar opposite end of the spectrum, the data highlighted pockets of rapid transaction turnover. Bells Creek in Queensland recorded the lowest hold time for houses nationally at a mere 2 years on average, while Parkes in the ACT saw units change hands at an average of just 3.5 years.
However, Mr Redman cautions the property industry against taking these hyper-short hold times at face value, noting they are often an artificial byproduct of data mechanics rather than a sudden wave of highly transient homeowners.
“These are relatively newer communities, so there simply hasn’t been the time for long-term holds to mathematically take over the data.”