The places that changed most since the last Census
Half a million homes worth of change since 2021, and a third of it nowhere near a capital city. Every suburb in Australia measured the same way, months before the Census can tell you.
By Luke Metcalfe, Founder & Chief Data Scientist, 15+ years in property data analytics · September 2026The 2026 Census was taken on 11 August. Nobody sees a number from it until June 2027. But we do not have to wait to know where Australia changed, because every new house gets an address the day it is built, and we hold all of them. Set today's addresses against the dwellings the Bureau counted in 2021 and the last five years show up street by street.
Half a million homes worth of change, and a third of it is nowhere near a capital city
Across Australia there are about 550,094 more addresses than the national trend since 2021 would explain, and they are not spread evenly. Melbourne is the largest single block of that change, Sydney next. But about 35% of it happened outside the capital cities altogether, in regional Queensland, regional New South Wales and regional Victoria. Anyone planning around capital-city growth corridors alone will miss a third of what moved.
Growth here always means growth against the national average since the 2021 Census, never a raw percentage. A suburb sitting on the national rate did not grow, it moved with the country. Everything below is measured as distance from that line.
Melonba had 440 homes. It now has 4,007 addresses.
The fifteen suburbs that pulled furthest ahead of the national rate since 2021, restricted to places with at least 500 addresses added and real selling activity since 2022, so that subdivided-but-empty lots cannot sneak in.
| # | Suburb | Significant Urban Area | Homes in 2021 | Addresses now | vs national since 2021 | What got built | Median listing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Melonba · story | Sydney | 440 | 4,007 | +632% | houses · 4 bed | — |
| 2 | Taylor | Australian Capital Territory | 672 | 3,071 | +267% | mixed · 3 bed | $560,000 |
| 3 | Russell Island | Brisbane | 2,271 | 9,094 | +222% | houses · 3 bed | $680,000 |
| 4 | Austral | Sydney | 2,225 | 8,137 | +194% | houses · 5 bed | $1,400,000 |
| 5 | Box Hill (NSW) | Sydney | 1,979 | 7,120 | +189% | houses · 4 bed | $1,300,000 |
| 6 | Charlemont | Regional Vic. | 1,043 | 3,169 | +144% | houses · 3 bed | $525,000 |
| 7 | Ripley | Brisbane | 1,690 | 4,675 | +122% | houses · 4 bed | $1,064,000 |
| 8 | Logan Reserve | Brisbane | 2,350 | 6,353 | +117% | mixed · 4 bed | $929,000 |
| 9 | North Rothbury | Regional NSW | 883 | 2,336 | +113% | houses · — bed | — |
| 10 | Tullimbar | Regional NSW | 618 | 1,576 | +105% | houses · 3 bed | — |
| 11 | Clyde (Vic.) | Melbourne | 3,668 | 9,145 | +100% | houses · 4 bed | $699,000 |
| 12 | Pallara | Brisbane | 1,243 | 2,894 | +87% | houses · 4 bed | $772,500 |
| 13 | Virginia (SA) | Adelaide | 637 | 1,477 | +86% | houses · 4 bed | $949,000 |
| 14 | Armstrong Creek (Vic.) | Regional Vic. | 3,947 | 8,924 | +82% | houses · 4 bed | $760,000 |
| 15 | Rouse Hill | Sydney | 1,355 | 2,943 | +75% | apartments · 3 bed | $1,300,000 |
What actually got built there
Of the forty fastest-changing suburbs, 26 are almost entirely detached houses and only 9 are mostly apartments. The apartment ones are inner-city towers, where the address count rises without the suburb visibly changing. The typical new listing in the growth suburbs is a four-bedroom house, one bedroom above the national norm, which tells you who moved in: families, at the point in life where a fourth bedroom beats a shorter commute.
Four of these places have their own page: Clyde North, Melonba, Tarneit, Donnybrook.
How to get ready for the new Census
- The boundaries changed before the numbers did. In Clyde North one 2021 area became 43. Any comparison of your suburb in 2021 against 2026 is comparing two different maps unless somebody does the joining work. We have, for every address in the country.
- Two questions are brand new and two are gone. Gender and sexual orientation were asked for the first time, of everyone 16 and over. The number of children ever born was dropped until 2031. Ancestry moved from two responses to four.
- The income brackets moved. Any chart putting 2021 income next to 2026 income will be wrong unless the bands are rebuilt.
And the honest bit. Everything in this article is our own address and listing data, not Census data. There is no 2026 Census data yet, anywhere. What we can tell you today is where the houses went. In June 2027 the Bureau will tell everyone who moved into them, and we will put the two together.
For developers: the same answer as a request
Everything on this page comes from data built for the Microburbs API. The API already resolves any address and returns its mesh block today. Three Census requests are specified and being built on top of it; they are not live yet, and this page will say so until they are. Access and plans are on the API access page.
| Request, coming | What it will answer |
|---|---|
GET /v1/census/resolve?gnaf_pid=GAVIC720355173 | Which Census area this address is in, for 2021 and for 2026, and whether it changed. |
GET /v1/census/lineage?mesh_block_2021=21327400000 | What an old area became, with the ABS's own population-weighted shares. This one returns 43 rows. |
GET /v1/census/releases | Which Census data exists today and which is still to come, with dates. |
Read the API documentation for what is live today, or see worked examples of the three Census requests as they will answer.
Addresses from the national address file. 2021 dwelling counts from the Bureau of Statistics' 2021 mesh blocks, residential only. Built form from the house-versus-unit split of the addresses themselves. Median listing price and bedrooms from listings since 2022.
Census 2026 on Microburbs: Where the Census is up to · The places that changed most · Clyde North · Melonba · Tarneit · Donnybrook · Will my 2021 analysis still work? · For developers
See what changed on your own street
Every suburb report is built from today's addresses and sales, not a five-year-old count.
Search your suburbUse the API