Chatswood buyers agent

About the suburb

Chatswood at a glance

Chatswood is about ten kilometres north of the city and the administrative seat of the City of Willoughby. It is one of the North Shore's major commercial and retail centres, with Westfield Chatswood and Chatswood Chase, offices along the Pacific Highway and a number of high-density residential towers.

It is also a large suburb: about 4.9 square kilometres, with more than 25,000 people at the 2021 Census. Apartments far outnumber houses, and just under half of homes are lived in by their owners. Couples with children are the largest household group, and the most common age group is 30 to 39.

There is plenty of choice, in both houses and apartments. The challenge is less finding something than telling the good from the ordinary, particularly in apartments, where two buildings on the same street can be very different propositions.

The name comes from Charlotte Harnett, known as Chattie, wife of the early mayor Richard Harnett: Chattie's Wood became Chatswood. The North Shore railway arrived in 1890. Today Chatswood station has both the North Shore line and the Sydney Metro, and it is a major bus terminus. The Concourse, completed in 2011, holds the library, a concert hall and a theatre.

The trade-offs are worth saying plainly. The centre is busy, and apartments close to the station and the shops trade convenience for traffic and noise. A large number of new apartments has been built, so we look hard at the building, the strata records and what is planned nearby. For houses, the street and the block matter more than any suburb-wide figure.