Ten top locations for property investing in 2025

Scott Kuru January 20, 2025 4 min read

KEY POINTS

Ten residential property locations with strong potential for long-term growth have been identified
These suburbs, spanning Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales, were chosen for their affordability, infrastructure development, and potential for rental demand
Investors are advised to view these areas as long-term opportunities for sustained growth over a 7 to 10-year property cycle, rather than for short-term gains

Recently, the Australian Financial Review newspaper asked me where I would consider investing in residential property in 2025.

The research team at Freedom and I talked it through, and we gave the Financial Review a list of ten locations that we believe offer the potential of great value and rental growth for investors.

I thought it would be worth sharing these locations with Australian Property Update readers and explaining the rationale behind each selection in more depth.

Best investment location

As of January 2025, these are the suburbs my team and I at Freedom Property Investors believe offer the potential for great value and rental growth.

However, there is one major caveat.

It’s a list of areas we believe will perform best over the medium to long term.

We believe these locations will reach their growth potential over a full property cycle - that’s a period of 7 to 10 years.

This is not a list designed for investors hoping to make a quick buck or property “flippers”.

These are suburbs to invest in now that should deliver great value growth and be seen as wise investment decisions when you look back in 2032, 2033, 2034, or 2035.

As I remind my clients again and again, property investment is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

However, if you invest wisely, it enables you to create substantial wealth, using the power of leverage, over time.

When selecting these suburbs, we used my top investment tips for 2025 - the set of criteria that I’ve summarised in this article.

These are:

Affordability, amenity and appeal, and are in the best asset class for the location
Surrounding suburbs are increasing in value, there’s high rental demand and low vacancy rates
Places with a planned big infrastructure spend and strong population growth, yet supply is constrained
New properties, as this maximises tax concessions like depreciation, as well as providing a premium offering for tenants
Don’t wait for RBA rate cuts; get in now while the market is tilted in favour of buyers. When rate cuts come, prices in these areas will re-accelerate.

The locations

WA:

In Western Australia, we believe Alkimos, Eglinton and Yanchep all have excellent potential for great value growth over the next 7 to 10 years.

All three suburbs are coastal areas between 40 and 55 kms north of Perth’s CBD.

All offer great affordability at the moment, yet have great appeal as “lifestyle” locations with beaches and bush.

Access to Perth’s CBD is set to benefit from planned freeway and rail line extensions, and all are set for very strong population growth, with Perth currently the city with the highest population growth in the country.

QLD:

In Queensland, we believe you can’t look past houses and units in Ripley.

This fast-growing suburb of the City of Ipswich has been earmarked as part of the Brisbane Metropolitan Western Growth Corridor project.

Considerable infrastructure is being targeted at the area, which is expected to absorb a lot of Brisbane’s forecast population growth over the next ten years.

The small town of Imbil, south of Gympie and inland from the booming Sunshine Coast, is another area we believe is set for take-off.

VIC:

In Victoria, we’re upbeat about apartments in rapidly gentrifying places like Footscray in Melbourne’s inner west.

Footscray is just 7 kilometers from Melbourne’s CBD and has excellent public transport, road and bicycle access to the city.

There’s also a huge infrastructure spend in the area with a big new public hospital set to open, and the West Gate Tunnel project.

The once-overlooked suburb has also now become one of Melbourne’s culinary hotspots and has a thriving bar, cafe and food market scene, rivalling suburbs like Fitzroy, Brunswick and Prahran.

It’s also home to Victoria University and has plenty of parks and gardens located on the banks of the picturesque Maribyrnong River.

Also in Victoria, we like the small town of Gordon, located next to the Western Freeway.

It’s 20 minutes from Gordon to the major regional centre of Ballarat and just over an hour to Melbourne, making it an ideal commuter suburb for people who want access to a major city while retaining a country lifestyle.

Gordon is also on the main Ballarat to Melbourne train line.

NSW:

In New South Wales, we like the settlement of Millfield to the south-west of Cessnock in the Hunter Valley.

Surrounded on three sides by the Watagan Ranges, Millfield is an ideal commuter suburb for people working in booming Cessnock or Newcastle.

Like Gordon, it provides residents with all the attractions of living in a picturesque country town, yet is well connected to an economically dynamic region with plenty of well-paid jobs.