Summary: One of the most amenity-rich suburbs in all of Sydney, Hurstville is teeming with options for shopping, dining and services. It’s also one of the most mono-cultural, being home to the highest proportion of residents of Chinese descent of any suburb in Australia.

Combine the two, and you’ve got a suburb with a central area with an always-busy and distinct flavour that’s quite a contrast to the rest of its streetscape – which is mostly residential and home to large, freestanding houses or mid-rise apartment blocks. It’s quite safe, has great public transport connectivity, but can feel hectic and a little unkempt in spots, while multiple new constructions continue to make it even busier.

Suburb Ratings:
3
Traffic
7
Public Transport
5
Affordability (Rental)
4
Affordability (Buying)
6
Nature
5
Noise
8
Things to See/Do
8
Family-Friendliness
6
Pet Friendliness
7
Safety
Overall 5.9 / 10

Key stats

Region: Southern Suburbs

Population: 30,000

Postcode: 2220

Ethnic Breakdown: Chinese 49.4%, English 6.6%, Nepalese 6.6%, Australian 5.1%, Greek 2.9%

Time to CBD (Public Transport): 25 minutes

Time to CBD (Driving): 30 minutes

Nearest Train Station: Hurstville

Highlights/attractions: Westfield Hurstville, Chinese dining & shopping

Ideal for: Families, professionals, young professionals

Median property prices: House – $1,400,000; Apartment – $680,000

Median rental prices (per week): House – $590; Apartment – $520

As a suburb, Hurstville’s mainstream public image probably doesn’t quite match up to what it truly offers overall. Most visitors typically associate it with its always-bustling, and often-overcrowded “CBD” area, but this tells only part of the story of what living here and its potential lifestyle is all about.

Layout-wise, Hurstville follows “correct” suburb design and suburban planning, with (an increasing number of) mostly high-density apartments close to its train station and public transport, and gradually becoming lower-density residential further out in its extremities.

Hurstville nsw

This creates quite the disparity in one part of the suburb to another, where you’ve got this fairly-hectic hub area filled with old-looking Chinese stores, people and traffic, that quickly becomes pleasant, fairly green and spacious rows of houses just a couple of streets out.

It almost needs to be judged as two entirely different suburbs in this regard.

Let’s start with the positives – and Hurstville has several.

Foreign Flavour

First, if you’re looking for a suburb that has practically every major store, service, or public amenity in existence self-contained within its borders, Hurstville certainly checks that box and then some.

It all starts with its main Hurstville Central complex centered around its train station, which contains a comprehensive mix of small fast-food restaurants and supermarket shopping, chemists and other miscellaneous essentials and is highly convenient for grabbing something on your way home or to work.

Hurstville review

Westfield Hurstville is the flagship here, as a major retail shopping centre that covers all the main big-box chains and food court-type dining in itself.

Hurstville shopping

But things don’t stop there; Forest Road, its main central thoroughfare, is absolutely draped with practically every service one could possibly need, from banking, to dental, to computer supplies and everything in between.

Hurstville cbd

Dining is another obvious drawcard, and it should be no surprise given its demographics that Hurstville is home to a cavalcade of Chinese and other Asian restaurants.

While some of its storefronts are older and a little rundown, there’s enough choice here to be able to cater to most personal tastes and dietary requirements. If in doubt, simply choose one of the restaurants where all the locals are going and you’ll likely be guaranteed a solid meal.

Hurstville Restaurants

It’s not only small scale services and restaurants, either. Larger, significant public services such as police stations, hospitals and other major amenities exist here as well; it’s hard to get a more comprehensive cross-section of desirable facilities in a single suburb.

It’s not a suburb with much of a “pub” or “cafe culture”, however. Outside of its RSL The Pinnacle, things here for entertainment and drinks are more oriented round karaoke bars or bubble tea shops; the Inner West, Hurstville is not.

Hurstville rsl

Hurstville’s physical position and connectivity also work strongly in its favour.

The suburb sits to the south-west of the Sydney CBD, but is neither “too south” nor “too west” before some of the negatives of those regions come into play. This gives it a flexibility for accessing not only the city but many other desirable parts of Sydney without too much difficulty.

Hop on a train and it’s only around 25 minutes into Town Hall; head the other way and you can be at the beaches of Cronulla in just over half an hour.

Have friends visiting from interstate or overseas? The airport is only a 20-ish minute drive away. Heck, even the other St George seaside areas like Sans Souci are just a stone’s throw away by car.

Hurstville station

Its public transport services are a big help in this regard, too. Hurstville overall is very solid for traversing Sydney without a car – not only its well-serviced train station, but its robust bus services as well.

It’s a good thing, as Hurstville’s traffic situation is not a good one, at least around its central hub area. A rapidly ballooning population, multiple new highrise apartment constructions, and an unusual abundance of one-way streets makes driving around Forest Road, Railway Parade and other main arteries of Hurstville unpleasant.

Parking is always a fight, King Georges Road is just as car-packed here as other parts of it throughout Sydney, and it’s quite easy to get frustrated with fellow drivers as a result.

It’s often a better idea to park in one of the quieter residential streets a few blocks away and simply walk in, although not ideal if trying to buy bigger shopping items at its retail.

Hurstville Street

It’s a bit ironic considering Hurstville’s residential streets are probably some of the best in the region for practising learning to drive.

Many of Hurstville’s housing-centric streets are wide, leafy and open.

This is again different depending on which “zone” of the suburb you’re in, however. The south side of the station is mostly a mix of low and mid-rise apartment blocks, townhouses/duplexes and the occasional street lined with larger freestanding homes.

Hurstville apartments

As we noted with Campsie, there’s also a bit of a lack of “house pride” in this area, with trolleys left in countless front yards, unmaintained front lawns, and rubbish left on the curb.

There’s a very good mix of housing types in this area, though, providing plenty of choice for people on different budgets and in different life stages. It’s quiet and peaceful, too, with a couple of decent if unspectacular parks in Bell Park and Quarry Reserve to keep things a little green.

Hurstville Parks

The north side of Hurstville is where things start to get more affluent. The vast majority of streets basically anywhere north of Queens Road quickly become decked out with large and impressive freestanding homes on decently-large blocks.

Some of these are massive, and it’s hard to come across a house with anything less than four bedrooms in this part of the suburb.

Hurstville Mansions

There’s a couple of nice parks dotted throughout – Woodville Park in particular with its gazebo, gym and playground equipment, Hurstville Oval as a spacious multi-use sports amenity with good play and bike riding areas, and its couple of other little reserves backing on to residential developments in particular.

Hurstville Parks 2

None of them are “amazing” or bastions of gorgeous nature, but they’re functional enough and good for those with kids and dogs alike.

One thing to note for those looking to cycle or otherwise get out and about by foot: Hurstville can be quite hilly in places, and while its central area is highly walkable multiple parts of the suburb can put a burn in the calves.

For families, it’s home to several schools both in the north and south, as well as in neighbouring suburbs like Bexley and Carlton as well, offering plenty of choice.

Hurstville Schools

Crime-wise it’s also on the safer side of Sydney, with only the occasional issue or shady character mostly occurring around its main bus and train station area – no surprise, given it’s a major hub.

In terms of price, Hurstville’s popularity has seen things blow out quite rapidly in recent years. What used to be a relative bargain for fairly-inner-Sydney has quickly seen things escalate.

“The suburb sits to the south-west of the Sydney CBD, but is neither “too south” nor “too west” before some of the negatives of those regions come into play.”

This is a result both of its desirability among the international market and the rise in large, new home builds that can go for multiple million dollar pricetags blowing out the figures a little; the median for a freestanding home currently sits at $1,400,000 which is slightly above the Sydney average.

Its housing rental market is quite well-priced, however; drop $600 per week and you can get yourself a (modest) freestanding house to rent quite close to the city.

Given its over-supply of high density living, even some of the newer apartments with two bedrooms can go for as little as $650,000 purchase price; bank on spending around $700,000 at least for something decent though.

Hurstville old apartments

Its ongoing developments with multiple new popup residential buildings around the city centre offer yet more chances at modern apartments, too, but these remain “buyer beware” in terms of long-term quality.

Hurstville apartment blocks

They also continue to put more strain on the suburb’s infrastructure and contribute to crowding its streets, as well.

The Verdict

With all of its positives in terms of location, convenience, and potential for roomy residential living for those with money, there’s more to like about Hurstville than one might initially think.

You won’t ever have to go anywhere else for shopping or service needs, there’s plenty of choice for a range of budgets for places to live, and it’s green enough to not feel like a concrete jungle – especially away from the station.

The main factor for many considering Hurstville as a place to live will depend on your attitude to living in a suburb that is heavily dominated by one ethnicity.

People will often call Hurstville “multi-cultural”, but that’s not totally accurate. Even the Indian-heavy Harris Park or the white-washed Northern Beaches suburbs can’t compare to Hurstville’s Chinese-heavy leanings and all that entails in terms of potential cultural differences and language barriers.

If the prospect of seeing railway station advertisements with only Chinese writing and no English on them, or restaurant menus where the English letters are microscopic is off-putting to you, then obviously there are better choices of suburbs. It’s not exactly the bastion of vibrant diversity that Sydney prides itself on, but the same can be said of many of the suburbs out west, north or south as well.

Put those biases aside and embrace what it offers however, and you’ve got a place to live in Hurstville with a blend of convenience, international dining, and accessibility that’s hard to match in still-fairly-central Sydney.