ThornburyVIC · suburb profile
VIC 3071 · Darebin
Daily life in Thornbury is marked by a strong sense of community and convenience. With 42.0% of the workforce working from home, the suburb offers a flexible lifestyle for professionals. Commuting is diverse, with 30.0% of residents driving to work and 6.7% using public transport. The suburb's cultural diversity is reflected in its top languages spoken at home, including Greek and Italian, alongside English.
Sales · 12 months to August 2026
What property sold for in Thornbury
Houses · The median house in Thornbury went for $1,480,000 over the 12 months to August 2026 — dearer than 87% of the Victorian suburbs we cover, and much where it sat a year earlier.
Half of all houses landed in the $1,298,000 to $1,755,000 range.
Houses
$1.48m
median of 127 sales
1.7% up on the previous twelve months.
Dearer than 87% of the 426 suburbs we cover in Victoria.
Half sold between $1.30m and $1.75m.
Last sold within the past two weeks
Units
$578k
median of 114 sales
24.9% up on the previous twelve months.
Dearer than 51% of the 162 suburbs we cover in Victoria.
Half sold between $464k and $682k.
Last sold within the past two weeks
Townhouses
$915k
median of 59 sales
4.7% down on the previous twelve months.
Dearer than 64% of the 113 suburbs we cover in Victoria.
Half sold between $815k and $1.14m.
Last sold within the past two weeks
300 sales on record · data to 30 August 2026
Since 2022
How prices have moved
Houses · Taking the longer view, houses here have barely moved since 2022 — $1,455,000 then, $1,480,000 now.
- Houses
- Units
- Townhouses
Dashed lines and hollow points are part years — incomplete, so a dip may only mean fewer sales have happened yet. A break in a line is a year with no published figure, not a fall to zero.
| Year | Houses | Units | Townhouses |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 · part year | $1.47m | $599k | $915k |
| 2025 · part year | $1.48m | $520k | $940k |
| 2024 | $1.43m | $580k | |
| 2023 | $1.41m | $628k | |
| 2022 | $1.46m | $650k |
Quarter by quarter
| Quarter | Median | Sales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q2 | $1.57m | 27 | +9.9%low confidence27 sales this quarter, 26 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2026 Q1 | $1.43m | 26 | -3%low confidence26 sales this quarter, 54 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2025 Q4 | $1.48m | 54 | -2.5% |
| Quarter | Median | Sales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q2 | $565k | 18 | -6.3%low confidence18 sales this quarter, 30 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2026 Q1 | $603k | 30 | +5.1% |
| 2025 Q4 | $574k | 44 | +20.8% |
| Quarter | Median | Sales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q2 | $885k | 13 | -6.8%low confidence13 sales this quarter, 9 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2026 Q1 | $950k | 9 | 0%low confidence9 sales this quarter, 25 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2025 Q4 | $950k | 25 |
A change is marked low confidence where either quarter had fewer than 30 sales. The medians are real; with a handful of sales the movement between them is mostly which homes happened to change hands, not the market moving.
Last 12 months
What an extra bedroom costs in Thornbury
Houses · Expect to pay around $455,000 more for a 4-bedroom house than a 3-bedroom one.
Houses
| Bedrooms | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | $1.32m | 20 · few |
| 3 | $1.41m | 74 |
| 4 | $1.86m | 30 |
Units
| Bedrooms | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $415k | 40 |
| 2 | $620k | 71 |
Townhouses
| Bedrooms | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | $850k | 30 |
| 3 | $1.12m | 23 · few |
Counts with fewer than five sales are left out rather than estimated, and bigger does not always mean dearer — a bedroom count with few sales can be pulled either way by the particular homes that happened to change hands.
7 schools · 2025 figures
Who goes to school in Thornbury
All schools · Thornbury's 7 schools teach 8,697 students, up 44.8% in ten years — and 10 government catchments cross the suburb.
Schools here
7
5 primary · 1 secondary · 1 Prep-to-12
Students, all schools
8,697
2025 · +44.8% since 2015
At primary schoolsStudents at schools whose type is “Primary”. It excludes children in primary years at a Prep-to-12 college — they are counted in the tile beside this one. This number answers “are the primary schools here filling or emptying?”
−18.8%
1,326 students · five years
Children in primary yearsChildren in Years 1–6 at any school, including Prep-to-12 colleges. This answers “are there still young families here?” — a different question from the tile on the left, which is why the two can move in opposite directions.
Prep and ungraded students are counted separately again; see the chart below.
−14.3%
1,338 · Years 1–6, anywhere
11 years · two ways to read them
Enrolments, 2015–2025
The same students, counted two ways — by the kind of school they attend, and by the year they are in. They answer different questions and can point in different directions. Both views are in the page; the buttons only change which is visible.
Over 10 years the suburb's primary schools have lost 18.6% of their students, while its schools running Prep to Year 12 have grown 95.1%.
- Primary schools
- Secondary schools
- Prep-to-12 & specialist
Show data table
| Year | Primary schools | Secondary schools | Prep-to-12 & specialist |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1,628 | 1,175 | 3,203 |
| 2016 | 1,627 | 1,187 | 3,367 |
| 2017 | 1,616 | 1,059 | 3,440 |
| 2018 | 1,653 | 1,112 | 3,445 |
| 2019 | 1,642 | 1,112 | 3,649 |
| 2020 | 1,634 | 1,077 | 4,033 |
| 2021 | 1,578 | 1,074 | 4,667 |
| 2022 | 1,514 | 1,053 | 5,003 |
| 2023 | 1,470 | 1,068 | 5,795 |
| 2024 | 1,420 | 1,114 | 5,942 |
| 2025 | 1,326 | 1,123 | 6,248 |
Which schools in Thornbury are filling and which are emptying. A school that covers Prep to Year 12 is counted once, in its own line — its primary-age students are not in the primary schools line.
- Years 1–6
- Years 7–12
- Prep & ungradedTwo groups that sit outside the numbered year levels: Prep — the first year of school, which the national data does not number — and ungraded students at specialist schools, who are not placed in a year level at all.
A suburb with a specialist school will have a large line here.
Show data table
| Year | Years 1–6 | Years 7–12 | Prep & ungraded | All students |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1,584 | 4,178 | 244 | 6,006 |
| 2016 | 1,608 | 4,327 | 246 | 6,181 |
| 2017 | 1,572 | 4,304 | 239 | 6,115 |
| 2018 | 1,552 | 4,372 | 286 | 6,210 |
| 2019 | 1,572 | 4,590 | 241 | 6,403 |
| 2020 | 1,562 | 4,922 | 260 | 6,744 |
| 2021 | 1,553 | 5,536 | 230 | 7,319 |
| 2022 | 1,553 | 5,813 | 204 | 7,570 |
| 2023 | 1,449 | 6,651 | 233 | 8,333 |
| 2024 | 1,467 | 6,843 | 166 | 8,476 |
| 2025 | 1,338 | 7,189 | 170 | 8,697 |
This counts children by the year they are in, not by the kind of school they attend — so a Prep-to-12 college contributes to every line. The three add up to every student in the suburb.
2025 · ACARA
All 7 schools in Thornbury
Ordered by size, not by results — 5 government, 2 Catholic and 0 independent. Schools with more than one campus are counted once.
What these columns mean
- Type
- Prep-to-12 is one school a child can start and finish at without changing schools. Specialist schools also appear as Prep-to-12.
- 5 yr
- Change in enrolments against five years ago, not against last year. Enrolments move slowly, so a single year is mostly noise.
- VCE median
- The middle study score of that school’s Year 12 students, on a scale of 0–50. The state median in 2025 was 29.0, so a school above that sits above the middle and one below it sits below. The smaller number after it is how many students the figure rests on. Under 30 students we show nothing at all — a small cohort’s result swings from year to year on who happened to sit the exams, which is easily mistaken for the school changing.
| School | Sector | Type | Students | 5 yr | 10 yr | VCE median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual School Victoria | Government | Prep-to-12 | 6,248 | +54.9% | +95.1% | 27 · 693 |
| Thornbury High School | Government | Secondary | 1,123 | +4.3% | −4.4% | 30 · 231 |
| Wales Street Primary School | Government | Primary | 616 | +2.7% | +1.7% | — |
| Thornbury Primary School | Government | Primary | 308 | −18.9% | −6.1% | — |
| Penders Grove Primary School | Government | Primary | 160 | −21.2% | −17.9% | — |
| Holy Spirit School | Catholic | Primary | 129 | −36.5% | −51.9% | — |
| St Mary's School | Catholic | Primary | 113 | −54.4% | −51.1% | — |
2 schools in Thornbury reported median VCE study scores of 27 to 30, against a state median of 29.
Government zoning
Which catchments cover Thornbury
10 government catchments cover Thornbury — 4 secondary and 6 primary — so which one applies depends on the address, not the suburb.
| CatchmentThe area around a government school where living there guarantees your child a place. Boundaries follow streets, not suburb lines, so an address near the edge of a suburb may be zoned elsewhere. They are redrawn each year. | Level |
|---|---|
| Coburg High School | Secondary |
| Northcote High School | Secondary |
| Preston High School | Secondary |
| Thornbury High School | Secondary |
| Bell Primary School | Primary |
| Brunswick East Primary School | Primary |
| Penders Grove Primary School | Primary |
| Preston South Primary School | Primary |
| Thornbury Primary School | Primary |
| Wales Street Primary School | Primary |
The read
What living here is actually like
Thornbury is a suburb with a population of 19,004, characterized by a diverse community with a median age of 37. The suburb has a balanced gender distribution with 47.7% male and 52.3% female residents. The family structure is varied, with 40.7% of households being couples without children and 43.1% being couples with children. Single-person households make up 33.6% of the community, reflecting a mix of family and individual living arrangements. The suburb has a high level of educational attainment, with 46.9% of residents holding a bachelor's degree or higher, significantly above the Victorian average of 29.2%.
Buyer fit
Who this suburb suits
One score per buyer type, out of 100, built from the demographic, housing and commute profile. Strongest first.
Buyer-fit score
Thornbury · 0–100
Show data table
| Buyer type | Score |
|---|---|
| Professionals | 85 |
| Families | 75 |
| Investors | 70 |
| First home buyers | 60 |
| Retirees | 55 |
Why professionals score highest
The signals doing the work
- High percentage of professionals at 39.6%
- 42.0% work from home, supporting flexible work arrangements
- Above average income levels
- Proximity to city amenities and transport
Against the state
How Thornbury differs from Victoria
Every bar is this suburb. The vertical tick is the Victorian figure — the gap between them is the story.
Housing & movement
What’s built here, and how people leave in the morning
Dwelling mix
Share of occupied private dwellings
Show data table
| Dwelling type | Share |
|---|---|
| Apartments | 24.5% |
| Separate houses | 51.4% |
| Townhouses | 23.4% |
How people get to work
Method of travel, 2021 Census
Show data table
| Method | Share |
|---|---|
| Worked from home | 42% |
| Drove a car | 30% |
| Public transport | 6.7% |
| Walked only | 1.9% |
| Car passenger | 2.6% |
Costs 2021 Census
Census figures, collected in 2021. Rents and repayments have moved since — for what property is selling for now, see .
Top occupations
Share of the employed workforce
Key highlights
- Highly educated population - 46.9% hold bachelor degrees (vs VIC 29.2%)
- Above average household income - $1,971 weekly (vs VIC $1,759)
- Significant work-from-home culture - 42.0% of residents
- Diverse housing options with 51.4% separate houses and 24.5% apartments
- Rich cultural diversity with 29.5% born overseas
Things to be aware of
- Higher rental prices with a median weekly rent of $391
- Unemployment rate slightly above state average at 4.7%
- Lower percentage of residents with no health conditions at 60.2% (vs VIC 61.0%)
- High percentage of renters at 41.9%, which may affect community stability
- Lower percentage of homes owned outright at 27.1%
Coming soon to this page
Where the richer profile lands
Schools & catchments
Zoned primary and secondary, NAPLAN bands, distances.
Transport & access
Stations, tram routes, drive time to the CBD, walkability.
Development activity
Permits approved, projects underway, zoning changes.
Want to dig into one address in Thornbury?
A suburb page gets you this far. For a specific block you get what homes of that size sell for here, the schools that address is zoned to, any subdivisions proposed within 500 m, plus lot dimensions, easements, planning overlays and true sun aspect — free, no account.
X-Ray an address →Data sources
Demographic figures from the Census of Population and Housing © Australian Bureau of Statistics, used under Creative Commons Attribution.
Cadastral and boundary data contains information © State of Victoria (Vicmap), licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Narrative summaries are AI-generated from the underlying data and may contain errors.
School details, enrolments and senior secondary results from the National Schools Data Collection © Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
School catchment boundaries contain information © State of Victoria (Department of Education), licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Base map © Mapbox © OpenStreetMap. Improve this map at openstreetmap.org/fixthemap.
Informational only — not financial, legal or planning advice. Verify zoning, overlays and catchments with the relevant council before relying on them. Data vintage: 2021 Census.