Picturesque, heritage-rich Victorian terrace suburb roughly 3 km east of the Sydney CBD. The name dates to October 1839, when James Underwood subdivided part of his land and called it the Paddington Estate after the London borough, and the suburb grew rapidly with speculative terrace housing from the 1860s — from 535 houses in 1862 to 2,347 by 1883. Today it is one of Australia's most upmarket and wealthy suburbs, originally developed as working-class housing in the 1800s (Compound Invest buyer's agency). At the 2021 census Paddington had 12,701 residents. The suburb is famous for its Oxford Street shopping, gallery and pub strip, the Five Ways village where Glenmore Road meets the local streets, and the Saturday Paddington Markets, held in the grounds of the heritage-listed Paddington Uniting Church on Oxford Street since 1973 to give local craftspeople, fashion designers, artists and jewellers an outlet.
At a Glance
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Region | Eastern Suburbs |
| Council (LGA) | Woollahra Council |
| Postcode | 2021 |
| Distance to Sydney CBD | Roughly 10–15 minutes by bus from the Oxford Street stops into the city — Paddington sits about 3 km east of the CBD… |
| Median house price | $3,545,000 (median house price based on 168 sales over the past 12 months, realestate.com.au suburb data, retrieved Sep 2026); an early-2026 aggregator put the median house price at $3,650,000 (auspropertyinsights) (mid-2026) |
| Median unit price | Apartment stock is limited in this terrace-dominated suburb — one aggregator's early-2026 median apartment price was $927,500… |
| Price growth | Median sale price up ~9% over the past 12 months on realestate.com.au data; over the decade 2016–2026 median sale price grew 34.1%… |
Transport
Paddington has no railway station — public transport is bus-based, with Transdev John Holland and Transit Systems buses running either along Oxford Street or through Five Ways. Buses along Oxford Street provide the main public-transport connection to the Sydney CBD, Bondi Junction and neighbouring suburbs (Sydney Point travel guide). The nearest train stations are Bondi Junction and Edgecliff on the T4 Eastern Suburbs line to the east and Museum on the city's underground line to the west, all a short bus ride away.
Schools
Paddington Public School — NSW government K–6 comprehensive co-educational primary school on Oxford Street, whose buildings date from 1870 and 1892 and which is consistently ranked among the state's top public primaries. Woollahra Public School — NSW government primary in neighbouring Woollahra, also high-performing, whose local catchment covers part of Paddington. Independent schools sit a short drive or bus away in the wider eastern suburbs rather than inside Paddington itself — The Scots College, an independent Presbyterian day and boarding school for boys K–12 predominantly in Bellevue Hill, and Kincoppal-Rose Bay, School of the Sacred Heart, an independent Catholic girls' ELC–12 school in Rose Bay.
Shopping & Amenities
Oxford Street is the suburb's spine — boutiques, art galleries, cafes and heritage pubs — and the Saturday Paddington Markets have run in the Paddington Uniting Church grounds on Oxford Street since 1973. Five Ways, the junction of Glenmore Road, Gipps Street, Moncur Street, Broughton Street and William Street, is Paddington's village heart of pubs, cafes and restaurants, with the William Street end holding the local cafe strip (Homely Five Ways street profile; area guides). The Royal Hospital for Women operated on Glenmore Road from 1905 until it moved to Randwick in 1997, after which its Paddington site was redeveloped as housing known as Paddington Green.
Parks & Outdoors
Paddington's eastern edge reaches the Centennial Parklands/Moore Park boundary, and the Sydney Football Stadium — home of the Sydney Roosters, NSW Waratahs and Sydney FC — can be seen best from the top of Oatley Road. Paddington Reservoir Gardens (also known as Walter Read Reserve), in Oxford Street, is a sunken garden created in 2006 from the preserved vaulted remains of the reservoir that supplied water to parts of Sydney between 1866 and 1899.
Property Market
The median house price in Paddington was around $3,545,000 (median house price based on 168 sales over the past 12 months, realestate.com.au suburb data, retrieved Sep 2026); an early-2026 aggregator put the median house price at $3,650,000 (auspropertyinsights) (mid-2026). See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. One of Sydney's most expensive terrace suburbs. The housing stock is dominated by Victorian-era terraces sitting in heritage conservation areas, so house medians are very high while apartments are a small share of stock. Property figures vary by sales window and method between trackers, and unit data is thin.
New Developments
New development is tightly constrained by the suburb's heritage conservation character — most of Paddington sits in heritage conservation areas, so activity centres on renovations, restorations and occasional infill rather than new towers (buyer's agent suburb profiles). The largest modern redevelopment was Paddington Green, the housing built on the former Royal Hospital for Women site after the hospital moved to Randwick in 1997.
Jobs & Local Economy
Local employment centres on Oxford Street retail, art galleries, hospitality and the design/creative industries drawn to the suburb's terrace studios and gallery spaces, while most professional jobs are a 10–15 minute bus ride away in the Sydney CBD (Sydney Point travel guide; buyer's agent suburb profile).
Nearby Suburbs
Woollahra, Darlinghurst, Edgecliff, Bondi Junction, Surry Hills
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:
Corrections are welcome — if something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
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