Home values in Canberra's inner north are dropping in value, but an unexpected area in the south-west is experiencing a second life.
All eight of Weston Creek's suburbs had substantial increases in home values over the 2025-26 financial year, according to new data from Cotality.
Stirling took out the top spot in the ACT, with the median home jumping 10.6 per cent to $1.1 million. Waramanga was close behind, growing 10.5 per cent to a median $968,261.
Three other Weston Creek suburbs made it into the top 10. Home values in Rivett grew 9.4 per cent, Weston grew 7.8 per cent, and Chapman grew 7.1 per cent.
Duffy just missed out with a 6.9 per cent growth, while Fisher and Holder, the area's worst performing suburbs, grew 5.7 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively.
Weston Creek was first developed in the late 1960s and is about half an hour from Civic. Purnell sales agent Steph Hoss said the area appealed to upsizers looking to move out of apartments and into their first house.
"Given the ease of access to the city and everywhere in Canberra, it's just a really popular and affordable suburb for families to be living in," she said.
"That desire to get a good block of land in an established suburb is still there."
Ms Hoss recently sold a house in Rivett after just seven days on the market, despite many first home buyers taking their time to commit to a purchase as the ACT becomes a buyers' market.
"We were completely overwhelmed with interest," she said.
Five offers were put on the house, many of which were from first home buyers with "really competitive" offers, Ms Hoss said.
In contrast, Canberra's inner north struggled in the 2025-26 financial year. Braddon, Reid, O'Connor and Civic were all within the top 10 worst performers for the territory, dropping between 0.9 and 4.2 per cent in value.
Dickson eked out a small win for its home owners with 0.5 per cent growth in overall value. However, the number is a poor representation of the property market: houses in the suburb in fact grew 6.8 per cent to $1.18 million, but were significantly brought down by the poor performance of the apartment market, which dropped 4.5 per cent to $606,503.
It was a similar story in Campbell, where houses grew by 2 per cent to $1.87 million and apartments dropped by 1.4 per cent to $694,652, leading to an underwhelming overall growth of 0.9 per cent.
Home owners in Downer were the major winner for the inner north, with houses and apartments both seeing significant growth. Houses jumped to $1.14 million after a 8.6 per cent increase in value, while apartments grew 4.2 per cent to $547,670.
Inner south home owners fared slightly better than their northern counterparts. Home values in Barton, Deakin and Forrest all rose a respectable amount at 2.8 per cent, 1.1 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively.
Griffith had one of the most substantial jumps for the inner south, with values rising 4.9 per cent overall. That translates to new median values of $633,094 for apartments, and $2.48 million for houses.
Forrest homes followed close behind with a 4.7 per cent leap, bringing the median home value to $1.04 million.
