Waverley, NSW 2024

Established, family-and-institution suburb of the Eastern Suburbs, seven kilometres east of the Sydney CBD, in the local government area of Waverley Council — the council takes its name from the suburb even though its administrative centre sits in the adjacent suburb of Bondi Junction. Waverley is the highest point of altitude in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, and at the 2021 census had 4,216 residents, 58.1% born in Australia. The suburb takes its name from Waverley House, built near Old South Head Road in 1827 and named after Sir Walter Scott's novel, with Waverley Municipality proclaimed in June 1859. Today it is mostly residential with a scattering of commercial development centred on the Charing Cross road junction, and its streets are shared by family homes, an unusually dense cluster of schools (Waverley College, St Catherine's School, St Clare's College), the War Memorial Hospital and the heritage-listed Waverley Cemetery.

At a Glance

Transport

Bus-based: Waverley has no railway station of its own — the old tram/rail era passed the suburb by and the nearest heavy-rail interchange is Bondi Junction station on the T4 Eastern Suburbs line, just over the suburb's boundary. Buses run frequently along Bronte Road (the Charing Cross spine through the suburb), Bondi Road and Old South Head Road, linking Waverley to Bondi Junction station and the wider Eastern Suburbs network — route 379 runs between Bronte Beach and Bondi Junction station via Bronte Road and Waverley, and the 381 Bondi Junction–Tamarama loop passes Waverley Oval and the Waverley Council chambers on Bondi Road.

Schools

Waverley has one of the Eastern Suburbs' densest school clusters. Waverley Public School — NSW government primary school in the suburb. Waverley College — independent Catholic (Christian Brothers) boys' school, with the Our Lady's Mount senior campus (Years 7–12) on Birrell Street and a junior campus at 44 Henrietta Street. St Clare's College — Catholic girls' high school on Church Street. St Charles' Primary School — Catholic primary next door to St Clare's. St Catherine's School — Anglican day and boarding school for girls on Albion Street; founded in 1856 it is Australia's oldest independent girls' school, K–12.

Shopping & Amenities

The village shopping strip clusters around the Charing Cross junction on Bronte Road — a mix of cafes, restaurants, specialty shops and services anchored by the heritage-listed Charing Cross Hotel on Carrington Road. Waverley Park provides playing fields and green space on the suburb's eastern edge, and the War Memorial Hospital campus on Birrell Street occupies a distinguished group of Victorian buildings. The main civic amenity, Waverley Library — the council's central library at 32–48 Denison Street with free parking underneath — sits just across the boundary in Bondi Junction, a short walk or bus ride away, and Westfield Bondi Junction is the suburb's major shopping centre.

Parks & Outdoors

Waverley Park is the suburb's green heart — large open parkland and playing fields (with Waverley Oval) on the eastern side of the suburb, home to local cricket and rugby and edged by Waverley Bowling Club. Waverley Cemetery, established in 1877, is one of Australia's most notable cemeteries thanks to its cliff-side location above the ocean between Bronte and Bondi, with the graves of poet Henry Kendall and aviation pioneer Lawrence Hargrave among its heritage-listed stone buildings; the Bondi-to-Coogee coastal walk runs along its clifftop edge. Heritage-listed Simpson Park on Macpherson Street and the historic Waverley Reservoir site at Paul Street add to the suburb's open and civic spaces, and the cliffs of Waverley's coastline (which the council LGA stretches 7.5 km along, with Bronte and Tamarama beaches at its foot) sit on the suburb's eastern edge.

Property Market

The median house price in Waverley was around $4,350,000 (median house price over the past year, realestate.com.au Waverley suburb profile, retrieved Sep 2026); CoreLogic via YIP put the median sale price at $3,820,000 on 31 sales in the 12 months to May 2026 (mid-2026). See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. An established, low-rise family suburb where medians move with a relatively small number of sales. Trackers differ by window and method: realestate.com.au's suburb profile showed a $4.35M house median and $1.275M unit median in Sep 2026, while CoreLogic via YIP recorded $3.82M/$1.24M — and individual listing pages can quote different windows again (one REA listing page cited $3,825,000 for houses and $1,670,000 for units). Waverley is tightly held and family-dominated: population was 4,216 at the 2021 census with 58.1% born in Australia, and the suburb's character is protected by an extensive heritage overlay (Mary Immaculate Church group, St Mary's Anglican Church, Waverley Cemetery, Charing Cross Hotel and more are all heritage-listed).

New Developments

Development is limited and slow-moving because much of Waverley sits in heritage conservation areas — heritage-listed items include the Mary Immaculate Church group on Victoria Street, St Mary's Anglican Church on Birrell Street, the Charing Cross Hotel, the Waverley Reservoir, and the stone buildings of Waverley Cemetery. The suburb's biggest project in decades is the Uniting War Memorial Hospital site at Birrell Street: Uniting NSW.ACT's roughly $500 million aged-care and independent-living redevelopment of the heritage hospital precinct — its biggest project ever — was approved after about eight years in planning, with a site-specific development control plan protecting the heritage buildings and earlier council rejections of denser schemes (Urban Digest; The Weekly Source; cityhub.com.au). With little new supply in Waverley itself, most high-rise growth happens in adjacent Bondi Junction, the LGA's commercial centre.

Jobs & Local Economy

Waverley is an institutional and commuter suburb. In-suburb employers include the War Memorial Hospital on Birrell Street (Uniting, health and aged care), and the suburb's unusual concentration of schools — Waverley College, St Clare's College, St Charles' Primary, St Catherine's School and Waverley Public School — makes education one of the largest local employment bases. Retail and hospitality cluster around the Charing Cross village on Bronte Road. Just across the boundary in Bondi Junction sit Waverley Council's administrative centre and chambers, Westfield Bondi Junction and the Bondi Junction business district — Sydney's fifth-largest commercial centre — while many residents commute to professional jobs in the Sydney CBD.

Nearby Suburbs

Bondi Junction, Bronte, Bondi, Tamarama, Woollahra

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 — St Catherine's School, Waverley
• 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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