Suburb overview
Mount Barker is a regional centre in South Australia, Australia, with a population of approximately 18,330, making it a smaller community. Located approximately 29 km from the Adelaide CBD, Mount Barker is a regional area in South Australia. The median household income is $84,448 per year.
Location
Key indicators
Postcode
5251
Postcode for Mount Barker, from a community postcode dataset cross-checked against Australia Post. A postcode may cover multiple suburbs.
Australia Post Postcode Finder →
Population
18,330
Usual resident population at the most recent census.
Median weekly rent
$600/wk
Median weekly rent — as at Jan–Mar 2026, Consumer & Business Services (SA) (CC BY 4.0).
Distance to CBD
29 km
Straight-line distance from the suburb centroid to the nearest capital city CBD. Actual driving distance will be longer.
Housing
Median monthly mortgage
$1,603/mo
Monthly median mortgage repayment for households currently paying off a mortgage.
Home type
85% houses
Proportion of separate houses versus units, townhouses, and other home types. Useful for investors assessing rental demand mix.
Why people like living in Mount Barker
- Family-friendly fringe location — around 29 km from Adelaide.
- Predominantly separate houses (85%) — suburban lifestyle with more land.
- Country-town feel with lower density and slower pace of life.
Who Mount Barker suits
Pros and cons
Pros
- Rent sits within an affordable share of local incomes, supporting tenant demand.
- Mortgage costs are lower than the South Australia median, improving cash-flow margins.
- Lower purchase prices and more land for the money.
Cons
- Traffic can build during peak hours, especially on arterial roads.
- Prices may rise further as demand continues.
Investment insight
With 18,330 residents, Mount Barker is one of South Australia's more populous suburbs — roughly 5.0× the state median of 3,699 — giving it a deep buyer and tenant pool that typically supports higher transaction volumes and shorter average days on market. At $84,448/year, household income in Mount Barker is within 4% of the South Australia median ($80,964), placing the suburb firmly in the state's mainstream demographic band. Median rent of $600/week (as at Jan–Mar 2026, Consumer & Business Services (SA)) equates to roughly $2,600/month — about 162% of the $1,603/month median mortgage repayment recorded at the 2021 Census. On those figures rental income covers most or all of the recorded repayment, but repayments on new loans have risen with interest rates since 2021, so re-run the coverage at today's rates before treating this as a cash-flow suburb. At 29 km from Adelaide, Mount Barker is an outer-metro location where buyers are typically trading commute time for floor space and a lower entry price.
Investment tip
Regional property can deliver strong cash-flow yields but liquidity is tighter — plan for longer hold periods and verify local employment stability. At the 2021 Census, local rents consumed roughly 22% of household income — a dated but useful sanity check on tenant affordability.
Mount Barker vs South Australia median
How Mount Barker stacks up against the median of all South Australia suburbs in our dataset. Positive values mean Mount Barker sits above the state median; negative means below.
| Metric | Mount Barker | SA median | Δ vs state |
|---|---|---|---|
| Population | 18,330 | 3,699 | +396% |
| Median household income | $84,448/yr | $80,964/yr | +4% |
| Median rent (weekly, 2021 Census) | $350 | $320 | +9% |
| Median mortgage (monthly, 2021 Census) | $1,603 | $1,616 | -1% |
| Distance to CBD | 29 km | 13 km | +123% |
| Separate houses | 85% | 73% | +12pp |
Investor checklist
Pre-inspection briefing for Mount Barker — every item is derived from public datasets, with full citations in our data sources page.
- Market depth: 18,330 residents — 496% of the SA suburb median (3,699).
- Purchasing power: median household income $84,448/year (+4% vs South Australia suburb median of $80,964).
- Cash-flow coverage (2021 Census): $350/week rent (≈ $1,517/month) covered ~95% of the $1,603/month median mortgage at the 2021 Census — verify against current rents and rates.
- CBD access: 29 km straight-line from Adelaide (state suburb median 13 km).
- Dwelling mix: 85% separate houses — house-dominant market (vs 73% state median).
- Rate stress-test: budget ~$160/month extra for a 1-percentage-point RBA rate rise on top of the $1,603/month median repayment.
- Tenant rent burden: 22% of the median household income is spent on rent — comfortably affordable.
Investment strategy
Solid buy-and-hold profile: a population of 18,330 and household income close to the SA median ($84,448 vs $80,964) give the market enough depth for patient capital growth without the premium entry price of inner suburbs.
Strong rental coverage at the 2021 Census: $350/week (~$1,517/month) covered 95% of the $1,603/month median mortgage, a shortfall of just $86/month. Both rents and repayments have moved since 2021 — verify current figures, though this suburb has historically leaned cash-flow-friendly.
A dwelling mix skewed to houses (85% vs 73% SA median) combined with a population of 18,330 creates a deeper market for value-add renovations — older stock, separate titles and stronger buyer competition are the usual pattern here.
Risk factors
- Interest-rate sensitivity: the $1,603/month median mortgage in Mount Barker means a 1-percentage-point RBA rate rise could add roughly $160/month to repayments, reducing buyer borrowing capacity and cooling prices.
- Mount Barker is 29 km from the CBD — not close enough to benefit from the inner-ring pricing halo, so growth depends more heavily on local infrastructure decisions and the wider South Australia market cycle.
- House-dominant stock: 85% of dwellings are separate houses, so value is concentrated in land — weather events, insurance repricing and land-tax changes hit investors here more directly than in a unit-heavy suburb.
- Regulatory risk: changes to Australian tax settings (negative gearing, CGT discount, foreign-buyer surcharges, land-tax thresholds) could reshape after-tax returns in Mount Barker regardless of local market conditions.
- Market cycle risk: property markets are cyclical, so stress-test your projections in Mount Barker with a 10–15% price pullback scenario before committing capital — returns to date are not a guarantee of future performance.
Run the numbers on a Mount Barker property
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Start your journey near Mount Barker →2026 outlook
Property values in Mount Barker should track the wider South Australia market through 2026, with the $84,448/year median household income (close to the $80,964 state median) keeping the suburb firmly mid-pack. At the 2021 Census, rental coverage ran at ~95% of the typical mortgage ($1,517/month rent vs $1,603/month repayment), keeping cash flow in positive or near-neutral territory. Verify against current rents and rates. Overall investor sentiment for Mount Barker is balanced heading into the second half of 2026, based on its income, rent and mortgage profile relative to the South Australia median.
Frequently asked questions
Is Mount Barker a good suburb for investment?
Whether Mount Barker suits you depends on your strategy, but the fundamentals are concrete: a population of 18,330, a median household income of $84,448/year and median weekly rent of $350. Weigh those against your goal — cash flow, capital growth, or a value-add renovation — each of which we break down with suburb-specific ABS numbers elsewhere on this page.
What drives property demand in Mount Barker?
The main demand drivers in Mount Barker are an above-state-median household income of $84,448/year, a dwelling mix that is 85% separate houses. Together these shape both owner-occupier and tenant demand.
What is the population of Mount Barker?
Mount Barker has a usual resident population of approximately 18,330, compared with a South Australia suburb median of 3,699 — placing it in the upper half of the state's suburbs by size. Population is the clearest proxy for market depth: more residents mean more transactions and typically a shorter average days-on-market on resale.
How far is Mount Barker from the Adelaide CBD?
Mount Barker sits 29 km straight-line from the Adelaide CBD. This is an outer-metro location; local employment and infrastructure announcements tend to move prices more than CBD connectivity alone.
What is the median rent in Mount Barker?
The median weekly rent in Mount Barker is $600 (as at Jan–Mar 2026, Consumer & Business Services (SA)), equating to approximately $31,200/year in gross rental income. Confirm against current listings on realestate.com.au and Domain before making an offer.
What is the typical mortgage repayment in Mount Barker?
The median monthly mortgage repayment in Mount Barker is $1,603, or approximately $19,236/year (vs $1,616/month state median). Stress-test your own borrowing at rates 1–2 percentage points above today's to make sure you can still service the loan through an RBA tightening cycle.
Is Mount Barker cash-flow positive for investors?
A median weekly rent of $350 works out to $1,517/month, covering 95% of the median mortgage repayment of $1,603/month. That leaves a $86/month shortfall (around $1,032/year before tax benefits), so a typical owner-occupier-priced property here is negatively geared. Actual cash flow depends on your deposit, loan terms, ownership costs and marginal tax rate — run the full numbers in our rental yield calculator.
What are the main risks of investing in Mount Barker?
The main risks are interest-rate sensitivity on the $1,603 median mortgage, the broader South Australia market cycle. Each of these is covered in the Risk Factors section above with suburb-specific numbers rather than generic warnings.
How we built this Mount Barker profile
The population figure on this page comes from the ABS 2021 Census. The postcode comes from a community postcode dataset cross-checked against Australia Post. The dwelling mix is from the ABS 2021 Census. The median household income is the ABS 2021 Census median weekly household income, annualised. Distance to the CBD is calculated from the suburb's ABS centroid. The Census median rent and mortgage figures are 2021 figures and are labelled as such wherever they appear — they are five years old and have moved substantially since. The current median weekly rent in Key indicators is a genuine recent figure from Consumer & Business Services (SA) (Jan–Mar 2026), published under a Creative Commons licence and dated on the page. We do not publish an investment score or school/park counts for this suburb. See our methodology and data sources for exactly what's measured and what's estimated.