Eastlakes, NSW 2018

Small, mostly residential suburb 8 km south of the Sydney CBD, named for the lake system on its south-eastern side and its location in the Eastern Suburbs; the area was once known as the Botany Swamps, which served as Sydney's third water source from 1859 when water was pumped from there to a reservoir in Paddington. The residential core around the Evans Avenue shopping centre is working-class in character: the north-east of the suburb, near the shops, holds medium-density affordable flats with large immigrant populations mainly from Turkey and Bangladesh, and about 17% of Eastlakes is public housing across three high-density estates. The 2021 census recorded 42.6% of residents born in Australia, with the most common ancestries English 12.5%, Australian 12.2%, Chinese 9.8%, Greek 8.9% and Bangladeshi 6.0%. Local reviews on Homely capture the trade-off locals describe: an affordable pocket of the eastern suburbs that is dense, multicultural and close to the city (Homely). Note: Wikipedia places the residential portion (west of the Eastern Distributor) within the Inner South of Southern Sydney, while the suburb's golf-course and dam side east of the Distributor falls in the Eastern Suburbs proper.

At a Glance

Transport

Public transport is bus-based — there is no railway station in Eastlakes; the nearest train station is Mascot station in Mascot, about 3 km away, and the nearest light rail stop is Juniors Kingsford in Kingsford, about 2 km away. Buses run through the suburb along the Gardeners Road/Botany Road corridors to the city and surrounding centres.

Schools

Eastlakes Public School — NSW government primary school: it began as an infants school in 1938 in a church hall in O'Connor Street and moved to its Florence Avenue site in 1944. There is no high school within Eastlakes itself, and the suburb's secondary students travel to government and independent high schools in the wider inner-south/eastern-suburbs area.

Shopping & Amenities

The local shopping centre sits on Evans Avenue in the middle of the suburb. A new Eastlakes shopping centre opened in 2021 across the road from the older centre, and the older centre is slated for future redevelopment. Just to the south-east, in the immediately adjacent suburb of Eastgardens, Westfield Eastgardens — the large shopping centre at the corner of Wentworth Avenue and Bunnerong Road that opened in 1987 — serves as the precinct's major retail destination.

Parks & Outdoors

The Lakes Golf Club — one of Sydney's premier private golf courses — occupies part of the suburb itself, on the eastern side of the Eastern Distributor, and the Botany Dams/Botany Wetlands remnant of the original Botany Swamps (Sydney's third water source from 1859) also lies within the suburb's eastern portion. The golf club was partly created by reclaiming the old swamps. In the adjacent suburb of Pagewood, Bonnie Doon Golf Club, Mutch Park and Astrolabe Park provide further open space and recreation.

Property Market

The median house price in Eastlakes was around $2.2M (median house price, quickproperty official-sales-records series, houses to Q4 2025, up 8.9% year-on-year) (mid-2026). See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. Quickproperty's official-sales medians put the Eastlakes house median at ~$2.2M and units at ~$790K, while Smart Property Investment's report series recorded a median home price of $2,254,000 — a tight spread for such a small sales pool (quickproperty; SPI). Eastlakes is an apartment-heavy suburb with a high rental share: 50.1% of occupied private dwellings are rentals and about 17% of the suburb is social housing, and household median income is a relatively low ~$68K/yr against a unit-heavy stock, making the price-to-income ratio (~32x) one of the most stretched in the state. The handful of detached houses that sell — mostly in the south-west pocket near Botany — drive the house median, while the flat market dominates volume.

New Developments

The main recent development is retail: a new Eastlakes shopping centre opened in 2021 directly across the road from the existing Evans Avenue centre, and once the new centre was complete the older centre was earmarked for future redevelopment. Beyond that, change is mostly incremental infill — the suburb's substantial public-housing estates and medium-density flat stock have been the subject of longer-term renewal discussion rather than large private projects, and Bayside Council's planning framework covers the suburb's residential core.

Jobs & Local Economy

Local employment is centred on retail and services — the Eastlakes shopping centres on Evans Avenue and, immediately to the south-east, the Westfield Eastgardens precinct in adjacent Eastgardens — with health, community and trades work in the surrounding Bayside area. At the 2021 census the largest occupation groups were professionals and clerical/administrative workers, and many residents commute to the city and to the airport/port employment corridors.

Nearby Suburbs

Kensington, Kingsford, Daceyville, Rosebery, Pagewood, Botany, Banksmeadow, Eastgardens

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 — The Lakes Golf Club
• Transport for NSW

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

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