Double Bay, NSW 2028

A harbourside prestige suburb and village 4 km east of the Sydney CBD in Woollahra Council, wrapped around a bay of Sydney Harbour between Point Piper and Darling Point — the bay's two lobes, separated by a miniature point, give the suburb its name and the eastern part is known as Blackburn Cove. It holds some of Australia's most expensive real estate and is colloquially called 'Double Pay', a term coined for the high incomes of residents and the high-end fashion labels in the shopping area. The 'Double Bay' village runs along New South Head Road and extends along Knox, Cross and Bay Streets, with upmarket shops, restaurants, supermarkets, offices and coffee shops, and Woollahra Council's chambers sit within the suburb. Cosmopolitan and affluent, its cafe-and-boutique scene traces back to post-war European migrants who gave Double Bay its alfresco dining culture. At the 2021 census it had 4,709 residents.

At a Glance

Transport

Public transport is bus-, ferry- and train-linked — there is no railway station in the suburb itself, but buses operate along New South Head Road to Bondi Junction, Watsons Bay and the city, with the city services (routes 324/325) running via Kings Cross and Edgecliff and the 325 continuing to Watsons Bay via Double Bay, Rose Bay, Vaucluse and Nielsen Park. Double Bay ferry wharf on the harbour shore has regular ferry services to Circular Quay — departures roughly every 30 minutes — and to Darling Point. The closest railway station is Edgecliff on the T4 Eastern Suburbs line, on New South Head Road at the suburb's western edge.

Schools

Double Bay Public School — the NSW government K–6 primary school in the suburb, described by the department as set in a stunning harbourside location (NSW Department of Education). There is no secondary school in Double Bay itself: Woollahra Public School (K–6, opened 1877) serves neighbouring Woollahra, and the area's independent boys' schools, The Scots College and Cranbrook School, are in adjacent Bellevue Hill.

Shopping & Amenities

Retail centres on the village strip along New South Head Road and its Knox, Cross and Bay Street offshoots — boutiques, restaurants, cafes, offices, hotels and the historic Golden Sheaf Hotel among its pubs. Kiaora Place, the shopping centre at 1 Kiaora Lane on New South Head Road, anchors the supermarket offer with a Woolworths plus specialty stores, dining and health and wellbeing services (Tripadvisor; Woolworths store list). The harbour end of Bay Street is a marine precinct with the ferry wharf, Double Bay Marina berths and harbourside eateries, and Woollahra Council's administrative chambers sit in the suburb at 536 New South Head Road (Boatique; Woollahra Council).

Parks & Outdoors

Double Bay's northern edge is Sydney Harbour shoreline. Redleaf Beach — a sheltered harbourside beach in the Double Bay precinct — sits beside Murray Rose Pool (formerly Redleaf Pool), Woollahra Council's free harbourside tidal swimming enclosure of roughly 90 m x 60 m at 536 New South Head Road (Sydney.com; Woollahra Council). Steyne Park, above the bay, is a harbourside reserve with wide views over Sydney Harbour toward the city, and the foreshore around the wharf, marina and beach forms a compact swimming and walking circuit. With an area of about 0.8 km², Double Bay has six parks covering nearly 10% of the suburb.

Property Market

The median house price in Double Bay was around ~$8.3M (median house sale price of $8,275,000 on 21 sales in the 12 months to May 2026, YIP/CoreLogic); OnTheHouse's Cotality median-value estimate put houses at $7,257,130 — the wide spread reflects very low house-sales volume in this apartment-heavy village (mid-2026). See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. A harbourside prestige market where supply is scarce and price points are heavily tiered between waterfront trophy houses, apartment blocks on New South Head Road and boutique units in the village. Mid-2026 medians run well above the typical eastern-suburbs range: YIP/CoreLogic put the house median at $8.275M (21 sales — a thin sample that makes the figure volatile) and units at $2.2M, while Cotality's automated value estimates were lower ($7.26M houses, $1.82M units). Rental yields are low (1.5–2.7%), typical of premium owner-occupier suburbs. The suburb's 4,709 residents (2021) had a median weekly household income of $2,931 and households are predominantly childless couples in professional occupations.

New Developments

Little large-scale development: Double Bay is a heritage-sensitive, low-rise suburb — Gladswood House, Overthorpe, Fairwater, the 4 and 6 Wiston Gardens houses and the Cross Street Compressed Air Ejector Station are all state heritage-listed — and harbourside and planning controls under Woollahra Council keep change to renovations and small infill. The main construction story sits on the suburb's edge: the NSW Government's 2025 decision to finish Woollahra's long-abandoned 'ghost' station and rezone the Woollahra/Edgecliff precinct for up to 10,000 new homes over 10–15 years centres on neighbouring Edgecliff rather than the Double Bay village itself.

Jobs & Local Economy

Retail, hospitality and professional services are the local employment base, concentrated in the village and along New South Head Road where offices sit above the shops. Woollahra Council is an anchor employer, with its administrative chambers at 536 New South Head Road in the suburb. Residents work predominantly in professional occupations, and Double Bay's 4 km proximity to the CBD means many commute to Sydney's financial and corporate district by bus, train or ferry.

Nearby Suburbs

Point Piper, Rose Bay, Woollahra, Edgecliff, Bellevue Hill

Sources & method

Researched 4 September 2026 from named public sources — census and government records, transport authorities, council and planning documents — plus published sales data. Where sources disagree on a figure, the guide says so rather than picking one.

Sources cited in this guide:

• Wikipedia — Edgecliff
• NSW Government

Corrections are welcome — if something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.

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