A leafy, affluent eastern-suburbs enclave about 5 km east of the Sydney CBD, on the traditional land of the Birrabirragal and Gadigal people; the name comes from the local Aboriginal word woo-la-ra, said to mean lookout, camp or meeting ground. Domain sums up the mood as 'class, prestige and quiet confidence' — 'the eastern suburb's more elegant' sibling to buzzing Bondi and Paddington, with sweeping gum trees over quiet residential streets, Victorian workers' cottages, terraces and grand mansions, art-deco apartment conversions and a reputation as 'Sydney's capital of refinement'. Wikipedia describes Woollahra as known for its quiet, tree-lined streets and village-style shopping centre, with Queen Street and Moncur Street particularly affluent pockets carrying an extraordinarily high number of heritage-listed buildings, plus several foreign consulates including Serbia, Russia, Poland and Turkey. At the 2021 census it had 7,189 residents (median age 42), and 50.1% of households earned more than $3,000 a week — nearly double the NSW share (ABS 2021 QuickStats). Domain also credits the suburb with the highest concentration of independent art galleries in Sydney.
At a Glance
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Region | Eastern Suburbs |
| Council (LGA) | Woollahra Municipal Council |
| Postcode | 2025 |
| Distance to Sydney CBD | About 15–25 minutes by bus to the Sydney CBD on Oxford Street and New South Head Road services — the suburb is 5 km east of the city centre… |
| Median house price | $4,250,000 (median house price over the past year, realestate.com.au suburb data via property-page snippet, retrieved Sep 2026); Domain's 12-month bed-size medians corroborate — 3-bedroom houses $3.838M, 4-bedroom $5.18M (Domain suburb profile) (mid-2026) |
| Median unit price | $1,400,000 ; Domain's 12-month medians: 1-bedroom $900k, 2-bedroom $1.37M, 3-bedroom $2.1M |
| Typical rent | Houses rent for about $1,825/week (2.3% gross rental yield) and units about $950/week (3.4% yield)… |
| Price growth | Annual compound growth of 1.7% for houses and -1.4% for units |
Transport
Woollahra has no operating railway station — the Eastern Suburbs railway line runs underground through the suburb, with the T4 line's Edgecliff station to the north and Bondi Junction station to the south the nearest rail access. Buses fill the gap: Transdev John Holland and Transit Systems services including route 389 and numerous routes along Oxford Street and New South Head Road connect the suburb to the city and surrounding areas. The shell of Woollahra station — partially built in the 1970s and abandoned after local opposition and cost blowouts — is finally being completed: in August 2025 the NSW Government announced it would finish the station, early works have begun, main construction is expected to start in 2027, and services are targeted to begin by 2029.
Schools
Woollahra Public School — the NSW government primary (K-6) on Wallis Street, opened 1877; its two-storey brick building, designed by J. Wigram and W. Kemp, is listed on the (now defunct) Register of the National Estate. Woollahra Preschool — Woollahra Council's own preschool, at 512 New South Head Road on the Double Bay edge of the boundary (Woollahra Municipal Council; ChildcareDB). There is no secondary school in the suburb; nearby independent schools sit in immediately adjacent suburbs, including The Scots College and Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill and Moriah College in Queens Park.
Shopping & Amenities
The village heart is Queen Street, running from the suburb down to the parklands edge, with its galleries, antiques shops, boutiques, patisseries, bars and restaurants, plus the shops of Moncur Street — Domain describes 'a polished village-style shopping scene renowned for its high-end boutiques' and notes Woollahra has the highest concentration of independent art galleries in Sydney. Several foreign consulates (Serbia, Russia, Poland, Turkey) are based in the suburb, and the suburb's Oxford Street edge and adjacent Bondi Junction put Westfield Bondi Junction — one of Sydney's largest shopping centres — only minutes away.
Parks & Outdoors
Woollahra is bordered by big green space: Centennial Park lies immediately to the south-west and Queens Park adjoins the suburb's southern edge, both part of the Centennial Parklands (with Moore Park and the Entertainment Quarter also close by), which together form one of Sydney's great inner-city park systems. Within the suburb's western pocket, the Woollahra Tennis Club plays at Trumper Park on the Glenmore Road edge of adjacent Paddington — a Woollahra Council-managed park with tennis centre and oval.
Property Market
The median house price in Woollahra was around $4,250,000 (median house price over the past year, realestate.com.au suburb data via property-page snippet, retrieved Sep 2026); Domain's 12-month bed-size medians corroborate — 3-bedroom houses $3.838M, 4-bedroom $5.18M (Domain suburb profile) (mid-2026). See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. A prestige market with scarce house stock — REA's suburb-wide median of $4.25M sits between Domain's 3- and 4-bedroom house medians ($3.84M and $5.18M), and an earlier Domain feature put the median house price at $4.45M. Housing is mostly medium- and high-density: at the 2021 census, terraces and semi-detached homes made up 31.1% of occupied private dwellings and flats/units most of the rest, with 15.2% of all dwellings unoccupied — typical of the eastern suburbs' prestige investor market (ABS 2021). Heritage conservation rules over much of the suburb keep new supply tight, which is what protects values.
New Developments
Development is tightly constrained by the suburb's heritage character — Domain notes art-deco conversions are 'the closest you'll come to high-rises in Woollahra, a suburb that demands elegance and values its heritage character over flashy new developments' — so the big story is infrastructure: the NSW Government's August 2025 decision to complete the long-abandoned Woollahra 'ghost' station on the T4 Eastern Suburbs line, expected to open by 2029, paired with state rezoning of Woollahra and Edgecliff for up to 10,000 new homes over 10–15 years. Woollahra Municipal Council responded in August 2026 by releasing its own alternative approach to the government's rezoning, arguing for liveability-led, well-designed growth (Woollahra Municipal Council).
Jobs & Local Economy
Employment in the suburb is village-scale: retail, hospitality and the art-and-antiques trade along Queen Street and Moncur Street, plus a notable consular sector — Serbia, Russia, Poland and Turkey all have consulates in Woollahra. Domain's profile notes the suburb holds Sydney's highest concentration of independent art galleries, supporting a creative and professional-services workforce; many residents commute to CBD jobs about 5 km away, with Edgecliff and Bondi Junction stations at the suburb's edges.
Nearby Suburbs
Paddington, Double Bay, Edgecliff, Bondi Junction, Bellevue Hill, Centennial Park, Moore Park
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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