Northern Beaches

Mortgage brokerDee Why.

13,785 properties, 10,341 of them units. About half the suburb rents, the typical buyer is in their thirties, and St Luke's Grammar is in the NSW top 100.

Last updated Monday 7 September 2026

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Dee Why at a glance

Last updated Monday 7 September 2026

23,354
people (2021 Census)
13,785
properties in the suburb
10,341
units vs 1,680 houses
47%
of homes are rented

What the suburb actually looks like

If you are reading this because you want to buy, refinance or invest in Dee Why, the suburb is not a typical Northern Beaches street of family houses. It is one of the densest pockets on the peninsula: a 3.4 square kilometre beach suburb, 31 km from the CBD, where apartments do most of the work and almost every second home has a tenant in it.

Apartments vs houses

Current stock sits at 13,785 properties. Units make up the overwhelming majority. Houses are the scarce asset, which is why they price so differently and why a house loan here looks nothing like a unit loan two streets away.

  • Units 10,341 · 75%

    The market most buyers and investors actually compete in.

  • Houses 1,680 · 12%

    Tightly held. When one lists, it is a different loan size entirely.

  • Other 1,764 · 13%

    Townhouses and mixed stock that sits between the two.

Tenants vs owners

At the 2021 Census, Dee Why was split almost evenly between people who own their home and people who rent it. That is a much higher rental share than most of the Northern Beaches, and it is why investors and owner-occupiers are often bidding on the same buildings.

  • Rented 47%

    A genuine tenant market, not a quiet owner-occupier suburb.

  • Mortgage 29%

    Owners still paying a loan. Refinance conversations are common.

  • Owned outright 21%

    Often longer-term holders or downsizers keeping a foothold near the beach.

Who lives in Dee Why

Dee Why skewed younger and more professional than the NSW average at the last Census. The biggest age group is 30 to 39. Households are more likely to be couples without kids, or someone living alone, than a classic family of four. Population grew 8.5% between 2016 and 2021, from 21,518 to 23,354, as more apartment stock came online.

36
median age
31%
aged 25 to 39
2.3
people per household
44%
of families are couples without children
30%
lone-person households
26%
work as professionals

What property costs here

Think of Dee Why as two markets sharing a postcode. Houses trade like scarce beach houses. Units trade like a high-volume apartment suburb, with two-bedroom stock doing most of the sales and most of the renting.

$2.6m
typical house sale, last 12 months
$1.1m
typical unit sale, last 12 months
$850+
asking rent for a 2-bed unit
12 yrs
average time owners hold
  • Recent house sales have clustered around $2.3m to $3.3m, with the middle of the market near $2.6m. There are not many on the market at once, and three-bedroom houses do most of the trading.
  • Units are the volume story. The middle of the market is about $1.1m, with plenty trading from the high $800,000s through to around $1.4m. Two-bedroom apartments dwarf every other sale type.
  • Rental stock is almost all units. One-beds have been asking around $600 to $700 a week, two-beds in the mid-$800s, and a three-bed closer to $950. Houses rarely appear for rent, which is why house investors here are buying scarcity as much as yield.
  • Eleven parks cover about 15% of the suburb. Combined with the beach, that is a large part of why renters and first-home buyers will pay a premium to stay in 2099 rather than go inland.

Schools in the top 100

School catchments move the needle for family buyers, even in a unit-heavy suburb. Dee Why has one high school inside the suburb that sits in the NSW top 100, and a selective campus next door in North Curl Curl that ranks much higher.

In the suburb

St Luke's Grammar School

Headland Road, Dee Why

67th in NSW, 2025 HSC

Independent K–12 on the Dee Why headland. The only top-100 high school actually inside the suburb.

Nearby catchment

NBSC Manly Campus

North Curl Curl (2099)

25th in NSW, 2025 HSC

Fully selective government school, a few minutes from Dee Why. The strongest ATAR option in the local postcode.

Nearby catchment

NBSC Balgowlah Boys Campus

Balgowlah

63rd in NSW, 2025 HSC

Comprehensive boys' campus that also landed inside the 2025 top 100.

Nearby catchment

Stella Maris College

Manly

93rd in NSW, 2025 HSC

Girls' Catholic college in Manly. Used by a lot of Northern Beaches families living north of the spit.

Lending in Dee Why

Dee Why has more apartment stock than almost anywhere else on the Northern Beaches, which means lender postcode and unit-size policy matters more than a glossy brochure. A $1.1m two-bed and a $2.6m house can sit two streets apart and be treated as completely different credit files. We know which lenders are comfortable with high-density blocks, which quietly cap the LVR on smaller units, and which will still fund a scarce Dee Why house at a sensible valuation.

James Haywood and the team live and work on the Northern Beaches, so the market here is not theoretical. We compare more than 70 lenders, prepare the application properly and stay on it through to settlement, then review it every year afterwards.

Other Northern Beaches suburbs

Northern Beaches overview
ManlyFrenchs ForestMona ValeAvalon BeachBrookvale

Population, age, tenure, household and occupation figures: ABS Census 2021, Dee Why (SAL 11229). Current property counts supplied for this page. Sale and rental ranges summarised from a September 2026 suburb market snapshot. School ranks: 2025 NSW HSC success-rate tables.

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