Pottsville sits 786 km from Sydney CBD in New South Wales, around 8 hours 20 minutes by car. Census data records 7,238 residents with a median age of 42 and a median household income of $80,912 per year. By household income, education, and employment patterns, it ranks in the top 40% nationally. The suburb grew 8.0% between 2016 and 2021. At the 2021 Census, households here paid a median rent of $500 per week and a median monthly mortgage of $2,063. 2 schools sit within the suburb boundary, and walkability is high.
Is Pottsville a good suburb?
Pottsville scores a B (55/100) on SuburbScan's Liveability grade — strong on transit, safety, and community, weaker on prices.
Mixed results
2 schools
Very walkable
Walkability 80/100 · 786.3 km · 501 min drive to Sydney
Above the state median
Median $1.49M · Less affordable than 76% of NSW
Low all-round risk
Fire 37/100 · Crime 34/100
Advantaged
SEIFA decile 7/10 · median age 42 · 7,238 residents
Liveability Rating
55 / 100 · Ranked #623 in NSWEach bar is Pottsville's rank among NSW suburbs, from 0 to 100 (higher is better). Scored on 4 of 5 factors: no school data, so the other factors carry its weight.
No flood data is published for New South Wales — a blank here means we hold no data, not that there is no risk.
How do you rate the liveability in Pottsville?
Local knowledge beats any dataset. Rate it and see what other residents think.
Our score
55 / 100
From schools, safety and socio-economic data — not opinion.
Residents say
…
Median House Price
Public listings dataPottsville's house market is moving higher: the median sale price reached $1.49 million, about 4% above where it sat a year earlier.
Houses
$1,492,500
Based on 150 recorded sales in the last 24 months.
Typically sold in 45 days — median across 69 sales that recorded a listing period
By bedrooms
- 3 bed 36 sales $1.32M
- 4 bed 89 sales $1.5M
- 5 bed 19 sales $1.7M
Units
$740,000
Based on only 7 sales — small sample, take as indicative.
Typically sold in 14 days — median across 3 sales that recorded a listing period
By bedrooms
- 2 bed 5 sales $740K
Currently for Sale
Last 6 monthsHouses in Pottsville are currently listed at around $1.59 million on average. Based on 42 houses listed in the past six months.
$1.59M
42 houses listed in the last 6 months.
44 of the suburb's 2,520 dwellings (1.7%) were listed for sale in the last 6 months.
Rental Market
Advertised rents · last 6 monthsHouses in Pottsville rent for around $1,040 a week on average, based on 36 houses listed for rent in the past six months.
$1,040/wk
36 houses advertised for rent in the last 6 months.
37 rentals advertised against an estimated 585 rented homes (6.3%) in the last 6 months.
Rent agreed on new leases
Jul–Sep 2026- 3-bed houses
- $895/wk
- 17 bonds
- +33% since 2021
Median weekly rent on bonds lodged for new tenancies across postcode 2489 (NSW publishes bonds by postcode, which can cover several suburbs). Change since 2021 compares the median of the first four quarters with the last four. Asking rents above come from advertised listings.
Rental affordability
June quarter 202571 Severely unaffordable · the average rental household in this region would pay about 42% of its income on the median rent in postcode 2489.
SGS Rental Affordability Index: a score of 100 means rent takes 30% of income, the usual housing-stress line; lower scores are less affordable. "Region" is the capital city or the rest of the state.
Gross rental yield
Indicative$1,040/week ($54,000 a year) on a $1.59 million median
Gross yield — before strata, rates, management, insurance and vacancy. Calculated from median advertised rents and median asking prices over the last 6 months. How we calculate.
Short-Stay Rentals
84 active Airbnb listings: 80 whole homes and 4 rooms. Whole homes are about 2.9% of the suburb's homes.
Airbnb only, as at Jun 2026; other platforms are not included. Active means reviewed in the past 12 months. The share is against private dwellings at the 2021 Census.
Is Pottsville safe? Crime statistics
2025Crime in Pottsville sits in the low band, with 159 incidents recorded in 2025 — down roughly 12% on the prior year.
159 offences
11.7% since 2024Crime Trend
Serious Road Crashes
2021–20252 crashes
where someone was killed or admitted to hospital
Crashes are counted where they happened, so a main road through the suburb carries people passing through; this is not a measure of risk to residents. Roads are listed with 3 or more serious crashes.
Council Flood Studies
Tweed Shire Council has published 8 flood studies on the NSW Flood Data Portal. The mapped flood areas are in those studies; SuburbScan does not hold them.
Coastal Erosion
Shoreline Change Summary
1988–2025Nearest Eroding Coastline
- Distance
- 830 m
- Rate
- -0.30 m/yr
- Net Movement
- -9.5 m
- Certainty
- good
Data Quality
Schools
Two schools serve Pottsville, and performance is broadly on par with peer-suburb schools.
- • 929 students across 2 schools (avg 464)
- • Sectors: 1 Government, 1 Catholic
- • ICSEA 1036-1094, median 1065 (above the national baseline of 1000)
- • Largest: Pottsville Beach Public School (556 students)
Primary
Walkability
Pottsville is very walkable on foot — at 80/100, most daily errands can be done on foot. Within the suburb there are 2 supermarkets, 6 parks and 4 cafes to anchor that walking radius.
Public transport
Weekday and weekend service frequency across every stop inside Pottsville.
- Peak (7-9am + 5-7pm)
- 93.8 arrivals/hr
- Off-peak weekday
- 30.4 arrivals/hr
- Saturday
- 19.7 arrivals/hr
- Median peak wait
- 0 min
- Span of service
- 16.5 hours
Scheduled service only, based on the 21 October 2026 timetable. Reliability (delays, cancellations) not measured.
NBN connectivity
The internet access technology available across NBN premises in Pottsville.
- Full-fibre (FTTP) share
- 46%
- Premises covered
- 3,092
NBN Co fixed-line and fixed-wireless premises, as at 30 December 2025. Higher-quality technologies (full fibre) score above copper, wireless, and satellite. Actual speeds depend on your plan.
Amenities
Tweed: council population
The three add up to the change above. These are council-wide figures from the ABS, not figures for this suburb alone — this suburb's own population is in the census section above.
Socio-economic profile
The ABS scores 20 small areas inside this suburb and averages them into the single decile above. They fall into 7 different deciles — a wide range, so parts of this suburb rank well above the average and parts well below it.
Pottsville is home to about 7,200 residents, with a median age of 42, a touch above the national 38. Median household income runs at $81,000 a year, with unemployment at 4.6%.
2021 Census · change since 2016
Population
7,238
Median Age
42
Median Household Income
$80,912/yr
Census Median Rent
$500/wk
Census Median Mortgage
$2,063/mo
Avg Household Size
2.7
Median Personal Income
$37,960/yr
Unemployment Rate
4.6%
Unoccupied Dwellings
8.9%
Total Dwellings
2,520
Owner-Occupier Rate
76.8%
Houses
76.3%
Rental Stress
32.1%
Mortgage Stress
30.6%
Work From Home
19.9%
Dwelling Types
Property Ownership
18 rented from a state or territory housing authority and 3 from a community housing provider, as a share of the 576 rented dwellings above — not of all dwellings.
Demographics
- Born in Australia
- 80.8%
- English Spoken at Home
- 90.9%
- Employment Rate
- 54.5%
- Completed Year 12
- 38.4%
Occupations
Religion
Country of Birth (overseas)
Largest overseas birthplaces, as a share of all residents.
When They Arrived
Share of all residents by the year they arrived in Australia. Periods cover different numbers of years, so compare the shape rather than the bar widths.
87 residents (1.2%) arrived since 2016. Australia’s borders were closed to most arrivals from March 2020, so the last two years of that period are much smaller than the ones before them — nationally 260,799 people arrived in 2019 against 28,521 in 2021.
Where New Residents Came From
Where residents aged five and over lived five years before the 2021 Census, for those who lived somewhere else.
9.7% of residents (661) lived in a capital city five years earlier, most of them in Sydney (306).
Top places newcomers came from, as a share of the 6,780 residents aged five and over. Areas are ABS statistical regions. Small counts are approximate: the ABS adjusts every figure slightly to protect privacy.
Languages Spoken at Home
Top languages other than English, as a share of all residents.
Age Distribution
Family & Household Composition
Commute to Work
1% of employed residents work in a capital's city centre (41 of 3,020).
City centre: the ABS area around each capital's CBD, such as Sydney Inner City or Perth City (which takes in Subiaco and Leederville). 2021 Census place of work.
Local Jobs
People who work in this suburb against employed people who live here, 2021 Census.
About 1,103 people work here; 3,020 employed residents live here.
Mostly a place people commute from: 0.4 jobs per working resident. At least 59% of employed residents must work outside the suburb.
Counts are by place of work and place of usual residence. The ABS counts jobs in zones; where a zone spans several places, its jobs are shared out by land use. The ABS also adjusts every figure slightly to protect privacy.
Education
Cars per Dwelling
Council Rates
Households face an average residential rates bill of $1,745 a year through Tweed based on 2024 figures.
How this land is zoned
- Other and special use 64%
- Residential 21%
- Parks and recreation 6%
- Rural and farming 5%
- Environmental 4%
- Zones under 1% 1%
Zoning sets what may be built, not what is there today. A single address can sit in a different zone to the suburb around it — the property page shows the zone for one address.
Building Approvals: Tweed
In the year to August 2026, 331 new dwellings were approved across Tweed. That mix is 187 houses and 144 units. Approvals are down 49.7% on the same period a year earlier.
Aboriginal Land Council
Aboriginal land in this area is administered by the Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council.
Local Aboriginal Land Councils are statutory bodies under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983, responsible for land claims and land management for their members. Their boundaries are administrative and are not a statement of whose Country this is. NSW does not publish a register of Aboriginal parties by area — they are registered for each project.
Climate & Setting
from Murwillumbah (Bray Park), 18.1 kmHigh rainfall — warm summers, mild winters.
- Elevation
- 11 m
- above sea level, at the suburb centre
- Distance to the ocean
- 827 m
- 4.6 km to a named beach
- Annual rainfall
- 1,569 mm
- 108 rainy days
- Summer max (Jan)
- 29.1°C
- 4 days ≥ 35°C
- Winter min (Jul)
- 9.1°C
- 0 frost days ≤ 0°C
Elevation is the ground at the suburb centre, from Geoscience Australia's National Digital Elevation Model. Approximate — it reads high in dense built-up areas. It is a measure of height above sea level and not an indicator of flood risk, which depends on height above nearby waterways.
EV adoption
In postcode 2489, 62 of 5,044 registered light vehicles are battery-electric on 31 January 2025. A further 3.0% (151 vehicles) are hybrid or plug-in hybrid, taking the non-petrol, non-diesel share to 4.2%.
Rooftop solar
In postcode 2489, 2,452 rooftop-solar systems totalling 14.8 MW have been installed since 2001, against 3,159 dwellings recorded in the 2021 Census. 130 went up in the last year.
Counts every system certified since 2001, so a roof re-fitted with a newer system is counted twice, and small commercial systems are included alongside houses — useful for comparing postcodes, not an estimate of how many homes have working panels today.
2026 covers part of the year only, to 2026-07.
First Home Owner Grant
FY2026-27$10,000 for new homes priced up to $600,000.
Off-the-plan or contracted-build value cap is $750,000 (vs $600,000 for completed new homes). Stamp duty concessions are a separate scheme (First Home Buyers Assistance).
Mortgage repayments
5 mortgage brokers are registered in this suburb.
Transfer duty at the owner-occupier rate, and it excludes first home buyer concessions — those can cut it substantially or remove it entirely. Excludes legal, inspection and lender fees. Check with Revenue NSW
The First Home Owner Grant applies to newly built homes only, so it isn't available on an established purchase. A first home buyer building or buying new under $600,000 may qualify for $10,000 — see what qualifies with Revenue NSW.
At $1,492,500 this is $892,500 above the $600,000 First Home Owner Grant cap. A first home buyer may qualify for $10,000 on a newly built home — check eligibility with Revenue NSW.
A deposit under 20% usually attracts Lenders Mortgage Insurance, which this doesn't include.
Principal and interest over 30 years, fixed rate. Excludes fees, offset, redraw and LMI. Default rate is the median comparison rate across 1788 advertised products as at 2026-10-27 — indicative only, and not an offer. Your rate depends on the lender, your deposit and your circumstances. Not financial advice.
Federal Electorate
Currently held by Justine Elliot Australian Labor Party
| Year | Winner | 2PP ALP | 2PP LNP | Swing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Justine Elliot | 60.0% | 40.0% | +1.8 |
| 2022 | Justine Elliot | 58.2% | 41.8% | -4.2 |
| 2019 | Justine Elliot | 54.1% | 45.9% | -0.1 |
Results are per division — federal electoral boundaries are redrawn periodically, so the history reflects this division's past, not necessarily the exact suburb's voters across time.
State Electorate
Currently held by Geoff Provest The Nationals
Next state election: 13 March 2027.
| Year | Winner | Won with |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Geoff Provest NP | 53.6% |
| 2019 | Geoff Provest NP | 55.0% |
| 2015 | Geoff Provest NP | 53.2% |
Results are per district. Districts were last redrawn in 2021, so results from before then describe the district of that name, not necessarily this suburb's voters. Results: © State of New South Wales through the NSW Electoral Commission, CC BY 4.0, adapted.
Looking at a specific address in Pottsville?
Every figure above is a suburb average, and an average smooths over the difference between a street of family homes and a block of flats. Look up one address and you get the census for the few hundred people around it, its own nearest schools and stops, and what the state has mapped for that block.
- The census for a few hundred neighbours, not all 7,238 residents
- Nearest and zoned schools, with the walk from that door
- Flood, bushfire and noise mapping, where the state publishes it
Free to look up. Subscribers see every section in full — $29/month.
Featured in
- #4 in The best beachside suburbs in Gold Coast
- #5 in Most walkable suburbs in Gold Coast
- #6 in Gold Coast suburbs with the most rooftop solar
- #8 in Gold Coast suburbs with the largest non-religious population
- #10 in The best coastal towns in New South Wales
- #11 in Gold Coast suburbs with the biggest house blocks
- #11 in Gold Coast suburbs where young families live
- #12 in Gold Coast suburbs with the largest Jewish community
- #13 in Gold Coast suburbs with the fastest EV adoption growth
- #13 in The safest suburbs in Gold Coast
- #15 in Gold Coast suburbs with the highest EV adoption today
Nearby suburbs
Compare Pottsville to another suburb
Side-by-side stats for any other NSW suburb — type a name and pick one.
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Common questions about Pottsville
Is Pottsville a safe place to live?
Recorded crime in Pottsville is low (34/100, ranked against other NSW suburbs on offences per resident).
What natural hazards affect Pottsville?
Pottsville has a low recorded bushfire history (37/100, ranked against every Australian suburb with any fire history). These are suburb-wide figures; check the address, as flood and bushfire exposure change street by street.
Is Pottsville a good place to live?
Pottsville has a SuburbScan Liveability grade of B (55/100), ranked against other NSW suburbs on school quality (25%), safety (25%), SEIFA socio-economic advantage (25%), walkability (15%) and CBD access (10%). Whether it suits you depends on what you weigh — each of those is on this page.
What is the population of Pottsville?
Pottsville, NSW had a population of 7,238 at the 2021 Australian Bureau of Statistics census.
What is the postcode for Pottsville, NSW?
The postcode for Pottsville, NSW is 2489.
How far is Pottsville from Sydney?
Pottsville is 786 km from Sydney CBD by road, about 501 minutes by car in normal traffic. Distance is the most-direct driving route, not straight-line.
What is the median household income in Pottsville?
At the 2021 ABS Census, median household income in Pottsville was $80,912 a year. It is the most recent suburb-level income figure until 2026 Census results are released in 2027.
What is the median weekly rent in Pottsville?
The median advertised rent in Pottsville is $1,040 a week for houses (36 listings), from rental listings over the last six months.
What is the median age in Pottsville?
The median age of residents in Pottsville was 42 at the 2021 ABS Census.
Is Pottsville at risk of bushfire?
Pottsville has a low recorded bushfire history (37/100). The score comes from Geoscience Australia's historical bushfire boundaries, with planned burns excluded: the area of recorded fires touching the suburb relative to its size, ranked against every Australian suburb with any fire history. It records where fire has burned, not a bushfire-prone land designation, which your council's planning scheme sets.
How are the schools in Pottsville?
There are 2 schools inside the Pottsville boundary: 2 at similar schools on NAPLAN, compared with same-state, same-type schools of similar socio-educational advantage (ICSEA).
Is Pottsville walkable?
Pottsville scores 80/100 on the SuburbScan Walkability Score, making it very walkable. The score is a weighted average of public transport, schools, parks, supermarkets, GPs, pharmacies, childcare, and hospitals within walking distance.
What is the weather like in Pottsville?
At the nearest Bureau of Meteorology station to Pottsville, Murwillumbah (Bray Park) (18.1 km away), summer days average 29.1°C, winter nights 9.1°C, 1,569 mm of rain a year over 108 rainy days, and 4 days a year above 35°C over 2006-2026.
Is the First Home Owner Grant available in Pottsville?
First-home buyers in NSW may be eligible for $10,000 towards new homes with a purchase price up to $600,000. The grant is administered by Revenue NSW; confirm current eligibility before signing a contract — state rules and amounts can change.
What council does Pottsville belong to?
Pottsville sits within the Tweed local government area. Council rates, planning approvals, and waste collection fall under this LGA.
How much are council rates in Pottsville?
The average residential rates bill through Tweed is $1,745 a year (2024). Every suburb in this LGA shares the same schedule — individual bills vary with land value.
How much is being built near Pottsville?
Across Tweed, 331 new residential dwellings were approved in the year to August 2026 (source: ABS Building Approvals). That's down 49.7% on the same period a year earlier. These are LGA-level totals — every suburb in the council shares the same figure.
Which federal electorate is Pottsville in?
Pottsville sits within the federal Division of Richmond, currently held by Justine Elliot (Australian Labor Party).
Search another suburb or address
Data freshness
- Census · 2021
- Median sale prices · Oct 2026
- For-sale & rental market · Oct 2026
- Council rates · FY 2024–25
- Building approvals · Aug 2026
- Schools · 2025
- Public transport · Oct 2026
- NBN connectivity · Dec 2025
- Crime · 2025
- Road crashes · 2021–2025
- Climate · 2006–2026
- Socio-economic (SEIFA) · 2021
- EV adoption · Jan 2025
- First Home Owner Grant · Sep 2026
- Federal electorate · 2025
- Short-stay rentals · Jun 2026
- State electorate · 2023
- Amenities · Sep 2026
- Health & emergency facilities · Sep 2026
- Industrial emissions (NPI) · 2024/2025
- Coastal erosion · 1988–2025
- Aircraft noise · 2024
Vintages show when each source's data is from. See all data sources.
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Information shown is provided as-is from Australian government and commercial data sources.
Always verify with the relevant authority before making property decisions.
See Data Sources and How We Calculate for details.