Sydney’s inner west is fast becoming the city’s best performing residential property market, with land values outflanking eastern and lower northern suburbs.
According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, the inner west, Warringah and Pittwater recorded the strongest rise in land values last year.
Meanwhile, some of the state’s priciest area codes were the worst performers last year.
Woollahra, which has a median land value of $1.23 million, recorded a 5.4 per cent drop in land value during 2009.
The land value in Randwick also took a dive, falling 3.6 per cent.
Across the state, land values rose only 0.18 per cent, compared with 3.3 per cent a year earlier.
''While it is difficult to generalise, … overall land values have barely changed in 12 months,'' said the NSW Valuer-General, Philip Western.
According to Mr Western, CBD property values fell by the largest amount since the collapse of the early 1990s, with the 12.5 per cent drop in land values largely due to the financial downturn.
''In late 2008-early 2009 this impacted particularly on the Sydney CBD with a number of larger corporations reducing their employee numbers and consolidating their office space,'' he said.