Everyone selling property in the Eastern Suburbs will tell you their suburb is close to everything.
Close to what, up which hill, and is there anything there you could actually buy — those are different questions, and they decide whether a place still works for you at eighty.
So I went and counted. Every apartment sale across thirteen Eastern Suburbs: 2,287 in the last twelve months, 1,442 of them two bedrooms or more.
The differences are much larger than the marketing suggests, and they run in directions most people would not guess.
First, where the market is
These figures cover the twelve months to September 2026, not a longer average, because the market has moved and a two-year figure would overstate today.
Across these thirteen suburbs, the median two-bedroom-plus apartment peaked around $1.60m in the last quarter of 2025 and has traded closer to $1.40m through the first half of 2026 — roughly 13% off the peak, and steady across the last two quarters rather than still falling.
One caveat to carry through everything below. A median tracks what sold, not what values did. If more small apartments happen to sell in a given quarter, the median falls without a single property being worth less. Treat these as a guide to what changes hands at what price, not as an index of your home’s value.
The table
Apartment sales, twelve months to September 2026.
| Suburb | Sales | 2 bed+ | Median | 3 bed+ | Median | 3-bed share | Buildings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kensington | 174 | 99 | $1,150,000 | 32 | $2,018,000 | 32% | 73 |
| Kingsford | 141 | 116 | $1,262,500 | 51 | $2,500,000 | 44% | 93 |
| Maroubra | 282 | 180 | $1,267,500 | 49 | $1,630,000 | 27% | 130 |
| Randwick | 444 | 308 | $1,300,000 | 49 | $1,865,000 | 16% | 204 |
| Waverley | 39 | 19 | $1,525,000 | 5 | too few | 26% | 14 |
| Bondi Junction | 166 | 88 | $1,565,000 | 22 | $1,735,000 | 25% | 45 |
| Edgecliff | 48 | 28 | $1,632,500 | 13 | too few | 46% | 15 |
| Coogee | 374 | 171 | $1,650,000 | 47 | $2,650,000 | 27% | 134 |
| Bondi | 154 | 103 | $1,670,000 | 23 | $2,250,000 | 22% | 68 |
| Bondi Beach | 204 | 125 | $1,810,000 | 21 | $4,540,000 | 17% | 91 |
| Rose Bay | 132 | 99 | $1,825,000 | 48 | $2,940,000 | 48% | 76 |
| Clovelly | 42 | 31 | $1,870,000 | 7 | too few | 23% | 23 |
| Double Bay | 87 | 75 | $2,300,000 | 26 | $3,813,750 | 35% | 53 |
Where a suburb had fewer than fifteen three-bedroom sales in the year, I have left the median out rather than quote a number that rests on a handful of transactions. Even where it is shown, treat anything under about twenty-five sales as indicative — Bondi Beach’s three-bedroom figure in particular sits on 21 sales and swings a long way year to year.
Two things jump out before you read another word.
The cheapest four suburbs are all on the same road. Kensington, Kingsford, Maroubra and Randwick sit on or beside Anzac Parade and the light rail. They are also the flattest ground in the Eastern Suburbs. The convenience and the value are in the same place, which is not usually how this works.
Volume and size run in opposite directions. Randwick has more apartment sales than anywhere — 444 in a year — and the smallest share of three-bedroom stock, at 16%. Rose Bay has under a third of Randwick’s sales and just as many three-bedroom apartments. Most guides treat “lots of apartments” as the same thing as “lots of choice”. It is not.
Start with the question that actually narrows it
Before suburbs, decide how many bedrooms you need. It changes the answer more than budget does.
If two bedrooms works — perhaps with a study — you have the run of the Eastern Suburbs. Randwick alone had 308 such sales in twelve months at a $1.30m median, across 204 buildings. You will be choosing, not waiting.
If you need three, the market shrinks hard and the map redraws. Maroubra becomes the standout at a $1.63m median — against $2.65m in Coogee, $2.94m in Rose Bay and $3.81m in Double Bay. That is well over double the price for the same bedroom count, eight kilometres apart.
Many downsizers land on three bedrooms without examining it: a study, a spare room, somewhere for grandchildren. It is a reasonable want. It is also the single most expensive decision in the move, and worth making deliberately rather than by default.
The two ways in
Most advice assumes a downsizer needs a lift building. That is half the picture, and the half that gets written about.
A lift works if — and only if — it reaches the street. A great many buildings have a lift and three steps to the front door, or a half-flight down to the garage. Those steps are nothing now and everything after a hip replacement. When you inspect, walk in from the footpath, not from the car park.
A ground-floor apartment with a garden or courtyard solves the same problem without a lift, and brings something a lift building rarely offers: outdoor space. For someone leaving a house with a garden they have kept for thirty years, that is not a minor consideration. It is often what makes the move bearable.
Ground-floor garden apartments are scarce, rarely advertised as such, and they sell fast. One Randwick garden-level apartment sold in seventeen days, ahead of its auction, with no car space at all.
What to look for: the six tests
1. Is there stock, in the size you need? See the table. A beautiful, level suburb with nothing to buy is a dead end.
2. Level access, by either route. Lift from the footpath, or ground floor.
3. The gradient to the shops. Not the distance. Four hundred metres uphill is harder than a kilometre on the flat, and it gets harder every year. Walk it with a bag of shopping before you decide anything.
4. Whether the essentials cluster. A supermarket on one side of the suburb and a chemist on the other means two trips. A centre where the supermarket, chemist, GP and post office sit within a hundred metres beats any single feature.
5. Medical, properly. Not just a chemist. A GP taking new patients, pathology, a dentist, realistic hospital access. This climbs the list every year you own the place.
6. Whether you can stop driving. Not whether you want to. Whether the suburb still works if you had to.
One thing you can stop worrying about: parking. Between 97% and 100% of two-bedroom-plus apartments across all thirteen suburbs came with at least one space. It is standard, not a differentiator. A second space is genuinely scarce and very expensive — if you are down to one car, say so early, because insisting on two removes most of the market.
The corridor
The best value and the flattest ground in the Eastern Suburbs sit along Anzac Parade and the light rail: Kensington, Kingsford, Randwick and Maroubra Junction.
That is not coincidence. Density follows transport, apartments follow density, services follow both. The corridor that got the light rail got the apartment buildings, the medical practices and the supermarkets — and because it runs along the sandy plain and the ridge rather than the coastal gullies, it is walkable.
The coastal suburbs east of it are prettier and, for this purpose, harder. You pay more, you climb more, and outside Coogee there is often less to buy.
Suburb by suburb
Kensington — the cheapest entry
$1.15m median, 99 two-bed-plus sales, 73 buildings. The lowest entry price of the thirteen, on the light rail, between Randwick and Kingsford. Three-bedroom stock is limited, so it suits a two-bedroom brief best. Well served by the Anzac Parade corridor and close to the Randwick medical precinct.
Kingsford — flattest ground
$1.263m median, 116 sales, 93 buildings. The most consistently level walkable ground in the Eastern Suburbs, on the plain running toward Botany, and the terminus of the L3 light rail. Anzac Parade is one of Sydney’s busiest bus corridors.
Shops and services run along the Parade rather than clustering, so slightly more walking between errands — but no hills doing it.
A note on the three-bedroom figure. Kingsford shows 44% three-bedroom stock at a $2.50m median, which looks out of step with its cheap two-bedroom entry point. That reflects new tower completions settling: older, inexpensive one- and two-bedroom stock underneath, new large apartments above, and little in between. Read the two numbers separately rather than as one market.
The trade-off: a busy arterial road, not a village. Aspect and noise matter enormously, and the difference between a front and rear apartment on Anzac Parade is significant.
Maroubra — the best value, especially at three bedrooms
$1.268m median, 180 sales, 130 buildings — and a $1.63m three-bedroom median, the lowest of the thirteen by a wide margin. Against Coogee’s $2.65m and Double Bay’s $3.81m, that is the most consequential number in this whole exercise.
The suburb splits in two and the distinction matters more than anything else about it.
Maroubra Junction sits up on the ridge near the Anzac Parade and Maroubra Road corner. Relatively level, a proper shopping centre, and a genuine cafe strip — Ek’sentrik, nowness, Little Me and My Local all within a short walk. Good bus connections down Anzac Parade.
Maroubra Beach sits in a bowl with a steep rim, Marine Parade in particular. The beach strip around McKeon Street has its own cluster of shops and cafes and it is lovely — but the connection between the beach and the Junction is a climb, and anyone assuming they will walk between the two daily should test that first.
The trade-off: an agent saying “Maroubra” is telling you very little. Ask which Maroubra.
Randwick — the deepest market
$1.30m median, 308 sales across 204 buildings — more than any other suburb here by a wide margin. If you need to move within six months rather than wait years for the right thing, Randwick gives you the most opportunities.
Randwick sits high on the ridge, so the centre is on relatively level ground, with the falls off the edges. The Belmore Road strip has two shopping centres about a hundred and fifty metres apart. Royal Randwick carries Woolworths, Harris Farm, a post office, a library, a GP, a dentist, butcher, fishmonger and a gym. Randwick Plaza has Coles, a chemist, a hearing clinic and a newsagent. At least five pharmacies sit within a few hundred metres.
Prince of Wales Hospital is on High Street, a short distance from the centre. For anyone thinking about the next twenty years rather than the next five, that matters more than a view. Randwick is also the L2 light rail terminus — a seated, step-free run to the city.
There is a seating area upstairs at Royal Randwick where older residents gather to play cards. That is a suburb centre working as a community rather than a transaction point, and it is rarer than it should be.
The catch: only 16% of Randwick’s apartment stock is three bedrooms — the lowest share of the thirteen. Superb for a two-bedroom brief. Much thinner for a three-bedroom one.
Bondi Junction — fewest buildings, highest hit rate
$1.565m median, 88 sales across only 45 buildings — the highest concentration here.
That concentration is the point. Bondi Junction is purpose-built towers rather than converted walk-ups, which is exactly the product a downsizer needs. Fewer buildings to check, a far better hit rate when you do. Heavy rail, Westfield, and level ground across the town centre.
The trade-off: high-rise brings its own questions. Remediation history, sinking fund health in large towers, and lift reliance — in a walk-up a broken lift is an inconvenience; on level fourteen it is a week trapped at home. Ask about the lift replacement schedule.
Coogee — beautiful, expensive, hard going
$1.65m median, 171 sales, 134 buildings. Volume is reasonable. Price is not: Coogee runs about $380,000 above Maroubra at the two-bedroom median and over a million above it at three bedrooms.
Coogee is a natural amphitheatre. The beach is at the bottom and almost every approach is a climb. You can read this in how locals describe their own streets — one cafe on Beach Street is “perched midway up the hill”, another on Arden Street “worth the walk up from the beach”. That is the daily terrain, described by the people living in it.
Services spread across Coogee Bay Road, Arden Street, Dolphin Street and Beach Street rather than concentrating, so errands mean covering ground — and covering ground in Coogee means gradient. No light rail; buses only. Much of the stock is small older blocks, which means walk-ups without lifts.
Ground-floor garden apartments are the exception worth hunting here, and Coogee has some genuinely good ones.
The trade-off: a large premium, from a market no deeper than Maroubra’s, on harder ground. That can be worth it. It should be a decision, not an assumption.
Bondi — the better of the two Bondis
$1.67m median, 103 sales, 68 buildings. Cheaper than Bondi Beach and with more three-bedroom stock in absolute terms despite fewer sales overall. If you want the Bondi postcode, this is the more practical half of it.
Bondi Beach — busy market, almost no large apartments
$1.81m median, 125 two-bed-plus sales, but only 21 at three bedrooms — a 17% share.
Bondi Beach looks like a deep market because 204 apartments changed hands in a year. Most are one and two bedrooms. For a downsizer wanting three, it is roughly one sale every two and a half weeks across the entire suburb, at the top of the price range.
Edgecliff — small, concentrated, large apartments
$1.632m median, 28 sales across just 15 buildings, 46% of them three bedrooms. A handful of large towers doing all the work, with a station underneath.
Fifteen buildings is a morning’s work to walk. You could know the entire Edgecliff downsizer market permanently in one Saturday — worth knowing if the suburb appeals.
Rose Bay — the large-apartment market
$1.825m median, 99 sales, and 48 three-bedroom sales — a 48% share, the highest of the thirteen. Rose Bay is where large apartments actually trade. At a $2.94m three-bedroom median you pay for it, but the stock genuinely exists, which separates it from several suburbs at similar prices.
Across 76 buildings, expect plenty of smaller blocks, so lift access varies a great deal and needs checking building by building.
Double Bay — the most expensive, by a distance
$2.30m median, and a three-bedroom median of $3,813,750 — the highest of the thirteen and well over double Maroubra’s.
Eighty-seven sales in a year across 53 buildings, so the market is real rather than notional. But the price spread is extraordinary — the middle half of sales runs across a wider range than anywhere else here. Double Bay is several markets stacked in one postcode.
Clovelly — beautiful, and effectively closed
42 apartment sales in a year. Seven of them three bedrooms — roughly one every eight weeks across the whole suburb.
A deep valley running to the beach with Clovelly Road on higher ground above it. Sharper than Coogee. Clovelly Road has two stretches: the eastern end, up around Clodeli and the restaurants, is the cafe cluster — good coffee, a well-regarded bakery, somewhere to meet people, not a place you do a shop. The western end is the practical ground: Clovelly Mini Mart sits a few hundred metres along on a flat pocket and covers the basics on level ground. For a full shop you are going to Randwick or Coogee, and neither is a walk.
The trade-off: the most demanding topography here, thin services, and very little coming to market. You could wait years and pay a premium when it finally arrives.
Waverley — too thin to plan around
39 sales, 19 at two bed-plus, and five three-bedroom sales in a year across 14 buildings. Level ground and a convenient position, but not enough coming to market to base a search on. Worth watching; not worth waiting for.
Two suburbs I would rule out
Matraville and Malabar are family suburbs. Pleasant places, and not downsizer suburbs — worth being direct about rather than listing for completeness.
Both are predominantly freestanding houses. What apartment stock exists is limited and rarely the right product: few lifts, few purpose-built single-level dwellings, little turnover.
Malabar has a second problem. The Anzac Parade cluster covers the basics — FoodWorks, post office, newsagency, bakery — but services stop about there, and medical in particular is thin. For a GP, pathology or anything specialist you are travelling. A suburb that requires a car for healthcare stops working the year you stop driving, which is exactly the risk a downsizer is trying to design out.
Matraville has the flattest ground in the Eastern Suburbs and a genuinely convenient centre at Peninsula Village — Woolworths, chemist, butcher, free parking. If something suitable came up it would be worth a look. But the search would mostly consist of waiting.
Both are excellent suburbs for a family buying a house. That is a different brief.
What the data cannot tell you
The table gets you to a shortlist. It does not get you to an apartment.
No property database records lifts, floor level, step-free access, or whether a ground-floor apartment has a garden. Not one of them holds a field for it. I checked every column across all thirteen datasets — build year, storeys, building style and internal floor area are empty for every strata unit in New South Wales.
So two buildings on the same street can be entirely different propositions — one with lift access from the footpath, the other with a half-flight to the lobby that no listing photograph will ever show — and there is no way to know which without standing in front of them.
That is the work, and it is why I keep my own register of which buildings across these suburbs actually work for a downsizer. It runs to nearly 1,800 buildings and it is built one Saturday at a time.
It also says nothing about whether the move stacks up financially, which is the other half of the decision. The complete guide to downsizing in the Eastern Suburbs covers the costs and the sequencing.
Common questions
What are the best suburbs for downsizing in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs?
For a two-bedroom apartment: Randwick for depth of choice, Kensington and Kingsford for price, Maroubra Junction for the balance of both. For three bedrooms: Maroubra at a $1.63m median is the clear value pick, and Rose Bay has the deepest large-apartment stock if budget allows.
Which Eastern Suburb is cheapest for downsizers?
Kensington, at a $1.15m median for a two-bedroom-plus apartment over the twelve months to September 2026, just ahead of Kingsford and Maroubra. All three sit on the Anzac Parade and light rail corridor. For three bedrooms, Maroubra is cheapest at $1.63m.
Which Eastern Suburbs are flattest and easiest to walk?
Kingsford and Kensington sit on the sandy plain and are the most consistently level. Randwick’s centre is flat along the ridge, though it falls away at the edges. Bondi Junction’s town centre is level. Coogee and Clovelly are the most demanding, with the beaches at the bottom of significant climbs.
Where can I find three-bedroom apartments for downsizing?
Rose Bay has the highest share at 48% of its apartment market, followed by Edgecliff at 46% and Kingsford at 44%. For value, Maroubra had 49 three-bedroom sales at a $1.63m median. Avoid Bondi Beach and Randwick for this brief — both have plenty of apartments and very few large ones.
How much more expensive is Double Bay than Maroubra?
At three bedrooms, well over double. The median three-bedroom apartment sold for about $3.81m in Double Bay and $1.63m in Maroubra over the twelve months to September 2026. At two bedrooms the gap narrows to $2.30m against $1.268m.
Has the Eastern Suburbs apartment market dropped?
Across these thirteen suburbs, the median two-bedroom-plus apartment peaked near $1.60m in late 2025 and has traded closer to $1.40m through the first half of 2026 — around 13% off the peak, and steady over the last two quarters rather than still falling. Bear in mind a median reflects what sold rather than what any individual property is worth.
Are ground-floor garden apartments a good option for downsizers?
Often better than a lift building. They remove the stairs entirely and come with the outdoor space many downsizers miss most after leaving a family home. They are scarce, rarely tagged as such in listings, and they sell quickly — one recent Randwick garden-level apartment sold in seventeen days, ahead of its auction, with no car space at all.
Do I need two car spaces?
Probably not, and the cost of insisting is high. Nearly every apartment across these suburbs comes with at least one space, but a second is genuinely scarce and carries a large premium. If you are down to one car, saying so early opens up most of the market.
Is Coogee a good suburb for downsizers?
It can be, in the right building — but you pay roughly $380,000 above Maroubra at the two-bedroom median and over a million more at three bedrooms, for harder ground and a market no deeper. Much of the stock is older walk-up blocks. Ground-floor garden apartments are the exception worth hunting there.
Is Matraville or Malabar good for downsizing?
Not really. Both are predominantly freestanding-house suburbs with very limited apartment stock, few lifts and little turnover. Malabar is also thin on medical services, which matters more each year. Both are good family suburbs; neither is a sensible place to build a downsizer search.
What should I look for in an apartment when downsizing?
Step-free access from the footpath, whether by lift or ground floor; a genuinely single internal level with no split levels or sunken lounges; a healthy strata sinking fund; and a level walk to a supermarket, chemist and GP. Read the strata minutes, not just the balance sheet.
How much does it cost to downsize in Sydney?
More than the difference between the two prices. Agent’s commission, marketing, legal fees, NSW transfer duty, strata and building reports, and moving costs routinely add two hundred thousand dollars or more to the gap. Run the real numbers here.
Should I sell first or buy first when downsizing?
There is no universal answer — each carries a real cost. Selling first leaves you without a home if nothing suitable comes up. Buying first makes you a visibly urgent seller. Running both tracks together avoids both but requires coordination. The Downsizer Smartplan works through all three.
Where to go from here
Run your numbers. The Downsizer Calculator gives you a real figure after every cost, in a few minutes, without giving up your email.
Come to the Downsizer Masterclass. A free small-group session on the whole process — the sequencing, the costs, the stock, and the mistakes that are expensive. Details and registration.
Have a conversation. Twenty minutes, no charge, nothing to prepare. Which suburbs and buildings suit your situation, what that stock actually trades for, and the biggest risk in the move as you are currently planning it. If the numbers say stay put, I will tell you that.
AJ Buyers Agent — Anthony Johnston. Independent buyer’s agency working only for buyers, never for sellers, across Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Licensed under Leverage Listings, Licence No. 10034573. 0412 424 240 · aj@ajbuyersagent.com.au
Sales figures are drawn from recorded apartment sales across thirteen Eastern Suburbs for the twelve months to September 2026 and are unadjusted for condition, size or aspect. A median reflects the mix of what sold in the period, not the value of any individual property, and is not a prediction. Medians based on small numbers of sales are indicative only. General information only — not personal financial, tax or legal advice, and it does not account for your circumstances. Services, transport and available stock change; confirm current details before relying on them. Questions about superannuation, retirement income and the Age Pension are for a licensed financial adviser; Anthony Johnston acts on the buy side and does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence.