Holsworthy Suburb Review

Good-value suburb oriented around family life provides a shot at safe & roomy living, although lacking in dining & entertainment.

Summary: If the search for a larger-sized home for a more reasonable price – without compromising on either safety or connectivity to the Sydney CBD – is getting you down, don’t sleep on Holsworthy as a highly viable solution. Technically the biggest suburb in the city, Holsworthy’s main residential area is a trim and tidy concentration of family-friendly property on generally large blocks set up alongside a ton of facilities to cater to those with kids.

This is a suburb that’s home to a mostly-peaceful environment and pretty hefty helpings of bush-style greenery along with a collection of schools, townhouses and freestanding homes with enough amenities to satisfy daily needs as well. It’s a bit lacking in terms of dining and retail as well as apartment/unit options, and non-families may feel a little out of place, but with what you’re getting for the price Holsworthy still ranks as one of the best value suburbs in Sydney.

Key stats

Formerly mainly just known as “that suburb with the military barracks”, Holsworthy has progressively grown over the years into a highly family-oriented pocket of residential goodness that has plenty to like about it overall – especially for the price.

Located in Sydney’s south-west, it’s technically the largest suburb in all of Sydney and is physically massive; however that’s a little deceptive as much of its boundary area is occupied by a mix of bush and its associated military base, the Holsworthy Barracks.

As a result, the demographics of Holsworthy trend quite a bit lower than the Sydney average, with a high percentage of younger families calling it home.

Its military theme continues elsewhere throughout the suburb – many of its streets have appropriately-themed names such as Light Horse Parade, Artillery Crescent and the like.

Add in several tributes and memorials/mementos to the military dotted throughout, along with its overall “bush” environment, and it’s nothing if not distinctive.

Holsworthy’s first main benefit as a place to live for the average non-military person comes due to its mixture of potential home size and space without sacrificing public transport connectivity to the Sydney CBD.

Despite its “map distance” from the city, Holsworthy’s station receives express services that make it possible to get from Holsworthy into Central Station in a sub-40-minute trip.

The T8 line also provides the benefit of being able to access Sydney Airport’s domestic and international terminals in short-order as well; this couples with a fairly short trip to transfer at Wolli Creek station for yet more connectivity to provide a pretty practical heavy rail transport scene.

Its large and expansive commuter carpark is both helpful and necessary, given the volume of people from neighbouring suburbs who need to use it each day.

For drivers, it’s also easy enough to hop on main artery Heathcote Road for accessing western Sydney hubs like Liverpool or Cabramatta, or looping down and around to Sutherland Shire.

The main issue comes when trying to get to the city by road instead where dealing with the clogged South Western Motorway brings with it frustrating traffic congestion.

As a streetscape, Holsworthy is still mostly fairly new, and quite a tidy little suburb overall.

It’s largely peaceful with back streets that don’t receive too much through traffic until you link up to Wattle Grove next door; other than the occasional military helicopter flying overhead, it’s easy to get a good night’s sleep here.

The majority of Holsworthy is a mix between pure, low-density residential homes and patches of bushy parkland mixed in. Much of its streetscape is comprised of semi-modern, low-lying, freestanding brick homes with the occasional older fibro build to break things up.

The main exception is its heavy cluster of townhouse and duplex-type homes closest to the station before you hit “true” Holsworthy on the other side of Harris Creek.

This bush-draped mini-creek leads via footpath through dense foliage into the streets of Holsworthy proper.

The mix of demographic and socioeconomic types here soon becomes apparent – its reasonable prices makes it possible home-wise to either grab something older on the cheap, or capitalise by building a larger dream home for a far more reasonable price than many more popular “brand name” Sydney suburbs.

It also leads to an interesting mix of houses where you can often see a completely different level of build from one side of the street…

… to the other.

This includes the frequent occurrence of the suburb’s signature big, roomy blocks with only a very small house built on them, which can look a little funny.

Holsworthy otherwise displays a pretty high level of upkeep and house pride overall. It’s largely kept in good condition, with little litter or graffiti and most of its lawns and public nature strips well mowed and maintained.

This extends to its huge helping of green spaces as well. While the nature on offer here isn’t particularly “beautiful”, there’s a ton of it and it’s mostly very well-kept and equipped.

Holsworthy’s home to a ton of parks and reserves packed within its relatively small residential portion, with pretty much all of them decked out in playground equipment and picnic tables reflective of its family-friendly environment.

Harris Creek Reserve is probably its signature space, running along its namesake mini-creek and providing a solid little walking track and barbecue and play amenities along with plaques detailing the area’s history.

It certainly doesn’t stop there, however; almost every residential street here has at least a decent small park within a couple of minutes’ walking distance, ranging from standard local parks to spots like Remount Park with its statue and tribute to the Light Horse Brigade.

For athletic or outdoorsy types, Moorebank’s sports club and its adjacent ovals sit just across Heathcote Road too, with clubs set up for soccer, softball and more for adults and kids alike.

Amenity-wise, Holsworthy is adequate for daily essentials but otherwise quite lacking.

It has a non-existent restaurant and dining scene internally, with no back-street cafes, restaurants or corner stores; you’ll have to head up to Wattle Grove Shopping Village (technically in the ‘next suburb’, but we’ll give it a pass here) for any kind of retail or goods.

The centre here itself is a fairly modest but decently-equipped little centre with a Coles, a couple of cafes and bakeries and other mixed smaller stores.

Its Wattle Grove Hotel is a smallish but solid local style pub that was renovated fairly recently, but other than that or heading over to “Sporties” at the Moorebank Sports Club, Holsworthy is entirely lacking in local spots to dine.

You’ll likely have to head up to Westfield Liverpool (around a 15 minute drive depending on traffic) for full-scale shopping when required.

As a result, if you’re not part of either the family or military demographics, Holsworthy may be a little on the boring side and you’ll likely want to look elsewhere.

For younger singles, if you’re not pushing a pram around you could likely feel like the odd one out, but for those either with or about to start a family and don’t need daily life to be massively exciting, Holsworthy certainly delivers.

Holsworthy caters to this group well not only in its playgrounds and green spaces, but its mix of schooling options and safety as well.

This is a place that’s home to a big range of childcare, preschool and general schooling options relative to its size – between its own offerings, and those in Wattle Grove and Hammondville nearby, it provides multiple opportunities for education.

Combine this with its sporting clubs, swim schools and other mixed activities for kids to take part in, and it’s exceptionally solid.

This flows over to its safety levels and overall crime rate as well. Holsworthy ranks well within the lower quarter of Sydney’s suburbs in terms of crime, with a very low 0.05% crime rate per capita.

It helps that it has a couple of suburbs’ buffer zone between its own borders and more crime-heavy areas like Liverpool, with the drop off quite large over a pretty physically small distance.

The only real “safety” concern with Holsworthy often isn’t actually a human one – its proximity to so much dense bushland has meant that bushfires have been an issue in past years.

In 2018, the military base had fire rip through it, and while homes were threatened and a handful damaged, fortunately there was no loss of life. With climate issues continuing to change, it’s something that you may at least want to keep in the back of your head.

Holsworthy’s other main drawcard is simply pretty good value for money.

While this is a suburb that is void of any kind of high-density housing or apartments, its mix of townhouses, duplexes and freestanding homes combines with an appealing price-to-block-size ratio to provide a pretty good range of prices for people from different income levels.

“Holsworthy’s home to a ton of parks and reserves packed within its relatively small residential portion.”

It offers a relatively reasonably priced chance at the token ‘white picket fence’ lifestyle in Sydney without having to break that all-too-common $1 million property price mark.

The median house price for Holsworthy currently sits around the $800,000 range; while this is mostly limited to older 3-bedders, they again tend to both have been renovated inside, and come with roomy blocks that allow plenty of space for expansion (or the opportunity for a rebuild at some point in the future).

The Verdict

In many ways, Holsworthy feels like a big country bush town with modern touches, and very escapist from the urban bustle of “true” Sydney despite being still well-connected to it.

For families of mid-tier budgets, there are few suburbs that provide its balance of kid-friendly green spaces and schooling options without being either a lot more isolated or disconnected, or simply unsafe in terms of crime.

It’s mostly not a suburb that will appeal to the younger crowd, foodies or those in search of somewhere “trendy”; this is far more a solid place to put down roots, raise kids, enjoy kicking the ball around in your backyard or at a local gathering on the weekend.

It’s got just enough to satisfy required shopping needs and there’s potential for more dining to pop up in the future, and it’s clean and pleasant enough as a backdrop for daily life in general.

Holsworthy is mainly well set up for those who either work directly in the city and who can commute, or for those who either work elsewhere in the west or south west as its drive into the CBD or east is not desirable.

If you hit that criteria – and either have kids or are planning to – and not keen on apartment life, Holsworthy is one of the better-value choices you can currently make for buying a home in still-relatively-inner Sydney.