Earlwood Suburb Review

Big housing blocks and gentrification makes for rapidly increasing prices, while its streetscape is a mixed bag of nice greenery, wide streets, and graffiti.

Summary: Blending together elements of the Inner West and the Canterbury-Bankstown region with obvious strong slices of Greek heritage, Earlwood is a highly family-oriented suburb in which you’re actually likely to know your neighbour’s names. Largely low-density residential homes on big blocks coupled with a gradually gentrifying main shopping & cafe strip, the suburb’s largely quiet and peaceful but also a little rough and ready. Rev-heads in particular seem to love it, and a bit of a disconnect from public transport means you’ll likely be driving to and from here.

Key stats

Unlike most of Sydney’s Inner West, Earlwood’s a suburb that couldn’t be more different from its immediate neighbours.

This isn’t the dense, cafe-and-hipster-heavy streets of Marrickville or the sterile modern box-highrises of Wolli Creek; instead, Earlwood harks back to the earlier days of Sydney with its mix of white Greek columns and low-lying red brick houses on truly huge blocks of land for an inner-suburban area.

Wide and spacious back roads provide the promise of actually being able to park your car on the street when visiting friends, while the houses here themselves also contain room via garage or driveway to park multiple cars of your own.

It’s not hard to see why many families that date back a couple of generations have seen no real reason to leave here; why relocate to elsewhere in Sydney when you’re likely only going to be able to downgrade to something far smaller and more cramped, whether that’s narrower streets or shoebox apartments? This is the main appeal of life in Earlwood – room to move, and not too much noise or fuss to live it in.

There’s a proper “true suburban” feel here, not “bustling suburban” like other busier Inner West suburbs – fewer apartment blocks, and not as much congestion overall outside of main thoroughfares such as Homer Street during peak hours.

Towering, large trees provide plenty of greenery and shade along most Earlwood back streets, which are mostly quiet outside of the busy Bexley Road on the northern side.

While there’s also no airplane noise to deal with, this peace is often shattered by one notable thing: car hoons. If Earlwood was a car, it would definitely be a hotted-up Subaru WRX – Homer Street is treated like a race track at all hours of the day, which could be a pain in the proverbial backside for those who are light sleepers in particular.

It’s a land of modified Honda Civics and entry-level used Audis, and given the suburb’s overall lack of public transport this is who you’ll be sharing the road with on weekends or when commuting to work.

Location-wise, Earlwood sits in a pretty decent if unspectacular spot that offers decent access to the city; on a good day, a sub-30-minute car run into Town Hall is doable. While it lacks a train station of its own, it’s entirely circled by multiple other stations that can be within walking distance depending on which part of the suburb you live.

Buses are an okay option with semi-frequent services, but as far as trains go Bardwell Park Station is probably the most accessible from the southern part of the suburb – although it requires a walk up a bit of a massive hill to get into Earlwood proper. Alternatively, walk along the back lanes to Turella Station or Tempe Station in 15-20 minutes or so and you’ve then got an easy transfer to the city by rail.

Slowly Gentrifying

Amenity-wise, Earlwood is quite decent and is getting better at an accelerating rate.

Its main cluster of little restaurants and retail around both Homer, William and Clarke Streets provides a pretty good selection of dining and cafe options with new modern cafes popping up all the time, and both its Coles and adjacent fresh fruit and veg market are good options for daily groceries. It’s not particularly exciting outside of maybe the Earlwood Hotel for a drink or three, but it’s serviceable enough to get by.

There’s no real larger-scale retail to speak of here, however – you’ll likely have to head over to neighbouring Marrickville for anything more decently-sized.

For public spaces, Earlwood has some pretty good sections of parkland.

Gough Whitlam Park is the obvious highlight, with its massive grassed areas that are regularly used for events, and its cool little Peace Park and walking tracks along slices of water makes for a surprisingly great hangout spot. It’s decked out with playground equipment, sports courts, picnic facilities and more, and is really solid overall.

Its other parks are mainly just bland/simple slices of grass with the odd bit of playground equipment, but there’s enough encircling the whole suburb that there’ll be one within a short walk regardless of which side of Earlwood you’re living on.

Demographic-wise, it’s mostly families and older Greek empty-nesters who have been here for a long time. As a result, it’s not hard to see why younger and more energetic types would consider the suburb boring – nice, well-kept houses with pretty front gardens do not an exciting place make.

Its demographics have also continued to change with ongoing gentrification; something that’s reflected in the changing style of its buildings. While most of Earlwood’s original streetscape is that aforementioned 1950’s-era red-brick lowrise style from back when everyone used to copy each other, there’s an increasing number of massive, spectacular new builds as well.

Gough Whitlam Park is the main highlight of Earlwood’s streetscape

These are mostly freestanding homes and not duplexes or townhouse complexes. There’s a few collections of lowrise apartment blocks (not highrises) mostly concentrated around the north side of the suburb, but otherwise it’s mostly “go big or go home” housing here.

As Earlwood sits up on a hill, there’s some truly towering houses built up on the hillside that overlook out towards Marrickville and beyond. The obvious Greek heritage of the area is still evident in many of these, with plaster statues, white columns and the like visible from all angles.

While this housing situation provides a less-cramped overall feel, it brings with it an increasingly restricting pricetag as well. Given its decent distance from the Sydney CBD with the size of most of its homes, it’s getting harder to find something affordable to buy in Earlwood.

It’s hard to come across a house here for anything less than about $1.1 million, and that’s not necessarily a reflection of the quality of the home as much as the block size.

Its lack of a housing mix also means there’s limited availability of other, smaller options to suit smaller budgets as well. Its apartments that are here are decently-priced (below the Sydney average) for rent, with about $500 a week able to get you something solid in the 2-bedroom range.

“Wide and spacious back roads provide the promise of actually being able to park your car on the street when visiting friends, while the houses here themselves also contain room via garage or driveway to park multiple cars of your own. “

For families, Earlwood is generally decent – multiple decent public school options and good play spaces with playground equipment abound – and like any suburb, although it does have the occasional minor crime issue to deal with Earlwood ranks very low for crime per capital overall, clocking in at a 0.04% rate.

The streets are highly safe during the day however, and it ranks better than average for break-and-enters, property damage, drug crimes and the like vs. Greater Sydney making it quite safe overall.

It’s not nearly as bad as some suburbs nearby and a good choice as a result, but if you’re the type who’s fragile or sensitive to things like spots of graffiti or the occasional trolley dumped on a front lawn, it’s something to bear in mind.

The Verdict

While it possesses a pretty pleasant streetscape and lots of nice room to move overall, Earlwood is a little hard to recommend as a place to live due to its higher than expected prices. It’s got a lot of positives, but at this extra added bit of distance from Sydney city you’d hopefully expect to see home prices start to get a little more affordable.

This is more of a point about the large home sizes and lack of property diversity than the quality; there’s simply fewer options for cheaper and smaller housing, meaning the overall cost is always going to be higher.

It’s far less “sterile” and plain feeling than some of the other more generic suburbs around this area and its heritage is nice if you like that sort of thing – meeting and chatting with an older Greek lady at a bus stop or corner store harks back to the days when Sydney suburbs actually had personality.

Its lack of public transport is a slight knock, but there’s enough other stations nearby coupled with bus access to balance things out somewhat. For drivers (and driving-oriented families in particular) this is a good choice overall as you’re getting a wide and open streetscape with cleaner, fresher air and plenty of greenery throughout.

If it was just a little cheaper – or had a few more options for home types to choose from – we’d rank it higher on the list, but then again that’d remove some of the charm of what makes Earlwood fairly unique.

In short, for families who want extra space and don’t require much excitement within their local suburb (but don’t want something totally dead), Earlwood has much to offer. For younger types or those after something “lively and vibrant”, there’s plenty of other suburbs nearby that provide that far better.