The trend is no more apparent than in NSW. Margaret Dixon paid $76,000 for a 0.80ha block outside Otford, just south of Sydney, in 1976 and expects to get more than $2million for her hilltop property.

Waterfront prices at Thirroul, on the outskirts of industrial Wollongong, are on par with beachfront homes at suburban Cronulla. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Thirroul or Cronulla, because both cost $1.2million,” he said.

Major city property markets continued to show signs of recovery over the weekend. Australian Property Monitors said clearance rates in Sydney were at 54 per cent, a jump of almost 14per cent, with total sales worth $71million, compared with only $54 million for the same time last year.

WHILE residential real estate markets have stagnated in five mainland capitals, once shunned near-city towns are experiencing a bonanza.

Bunbury in Western Australia is one of Australia’s fastest- growing areas, with some prices doubling while Perth struggles.

South Australia has Mt Barker, a rural community with metropolitan house prices.

Buying near Geelong, Victoria, can mean paying as much as you would in Melbourne’s best suburbs — 80km away.

Prices have stalled in Brisbane, but the boom continues on the Gold Coast and along most of the Queensland coast.

The trend is no more apparent than in NSW. Margaret Dixon paid $76,000 for a 0.80ha block outside Otford, just south of Sydney, in 1976 and expects to get more than $2million for her hilltop property.

Mrs Dixon, 59, said the property had seemed remote at the time — with no milk, bread or mail deliveries and no running water. “I wasn’t working, I had three children under five, but my husband worked enormously hard to pay it off,” she said.

“If someone had told me I would be living in a $2million property I wouldn’t have believed them.”

What was once seen as remoteness is now branded as valuable privacy, and what used to be a long trip to the city is little more than standard commuting time today.

Helensburg PRDnationwide director Doug Svensen said he expected a 25 per cent increase in the next 12 months for the best properties just south of Sydney.

Waterfront prices at Thirroul, on the outskirts of industrial Wollongong, are on par with beachfront homes at suburban Cronulla. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Thirroul or Cronulla, because both cost $1.2million,” he said.

Major city property markets continued to show signs of recovery over the weekend. Australian Property Monitors said clearance rates in Sydney were at 54 per cent, a jump of almost 14per cent, with total sales worth $71million, compared with only $54 million for the same time last year.

Clearance rates in Melbourne were a high 60 per cent, up 10per cent on the same weekend last year and, with a dollar value of $48million, more than double thevalue of properties sold in the same weekend last year.

Also published in The Sunday Times and the Townsville Bulletin.