Buyers Agents · Southern Tasmania
Hobart has a particular intimacy for a capital city. You can get to know your favourite rambling streets and have a favourite table. Yet kunanyi and the Derwent are always there, giving the city a presence well beyond its size.
For many people, the attraction is the life they can imagine making here. A charming old house within walking distance of dinner. A cottage garden with the mountain behind it. Being close enough to the water to walk down after work, simply because there is still light.
The river divides the city more than a map suggests. The Eastern Shore gets the afternoon sun in winter; the Channel gets the prettiest drive home; the valley north of the city gets the vineyards. Where you make your home will shape which of those things becomes yours.
You know the version of yourself you are hoping to be here. At Shepherd & Co, we help you find the part of Greater Hobart you will feel most at home in, then find and secure a property that belongs in that life.
Is Greater Hobart for you?
What draws people here
A city you can get to know. A café where they know your coffee order, a bookshop you keep returning to, people you recognise at the market. There is pleasure in feeling that a place is gradually becoming yours.
The landscape in the middle of things. The mountain can change the mood of an afternoon and a street; the river can become the best part of the journey home. You do not have to save that connection for a weekend away.
Room for different lives. Old neighbourhoods and cultural life, a beach you can see from the kitchen window, or a little land to potter on. Hobart brings quite different possibilities very close together.
What deserves a longer look
The sun reaching the house. A beautiful view and a warm living room are separate things. Hobart’s hills make orientation and winter light the first thing to understand before you buy.
The journeys that shape the day. A bridge crossing or the Southern Outlet may become part of your daily routine. Try the journey when you would actually make it.
What you want to spend your time on. Restoring an old house, tending a few acres, or simplifying and having more time to yourself are different ambitions. Be clear about which one brought you here.
The places within the region
Six quite different ways to live, within forty minutes of each other.
Hobart and the inner suburbs
In Hobart’s central older neighbourhoods, even the trip for milk can be a pleasure. An old garden wall, autumn leaves underfoot, a time-worn weatherboard you quietly keep an eye on, just in case it ever comes up for sale. The streets themselves are part of the attraction.
Battery Point and the inner suburbs appeal to people who want the city woven into their day. Some of the houses may be cosier than the one you left, but more of your life can happen beyond its front door.
Closer to the mountain, around South Hobart and the foothills, village life, the trees and the walking tracks are woven into every day. Sandy Bay runs along the river: big houses, the university, the yacht club, and shops you can walk to.
The old houses can be wonderful. Finding one with the light, warmth and layout to live in comfortably is where affection for a place needs a careful eye. These are also the most sought-after streets in the state, and the best houses in them often change hands before anyone sees a sign.
Inner Hobart sits around $1m to $1.3m; Battery Point and Sandy Bay $1.2m to $1.5m; West and South Hobart $900,000 to $1.1m.
Glenorchy and the northern suburbs
The northern suburbs have a lived-in character that can be easy to miss on a first visit. Homes sit alongside workshops and local businesses; established and diverse communities give the area a strong life of its own.
In Moonah, a character house with a garden and somewhere good for coffee can make an appealing starting point for a different life. Farther north, the river opens out, and homes on the hills can have outlooks you might not have expected from the address alone. Glenorchy provides the shops and services that keep much of this side of the city moving.
Parts of the north carry a reputation twenty years out of date; parts of it are earned. As in any city, a few streets have a harder history than their neighbours, and that is something we know and will say plainly. An hour in the streets, at the right time of day, tells you which is which.
Moonah and Glenorchy sit around $650,000 to $750,000; New Town and Lenah Valley $750,000 to $900,000.
Brighton and the country north of the city
For some people, the move is partly about what they would finally have room for. A proper vegetable garden. Somewhere to put the tools. A house that can accommodate family coming to stay.
Around Brighton and Old Beach, the possibilities include established homes, newer neighbourhoods and rural properties. Pontville brings an older village character; farther out, the landscape becomes more open, with paddocks and rural properties taking the place of suburban streets.
The useful question is what the extra space will let you do, and whether the journeys attached to it still leave you time to enjoy it. Here too, neighbourhoods a few minutes apart can be quite different in feel and in who lives there; it is worth walking them at different hours before you decide. A few acres are most rewarding when you want the life that comes with them.
Brighton and Old Beach sit around $700,000 to $850,000; rural properties are quoted on the land.
Clarence and the Eastern Shore
On the Eastern Shore, you look back towards Hobart with the mountain behind it. The changing light across the river can hold your attention for years. You will catch yourself looking back at the city more often than you expect, and liking it more each time.
Around Bellerive and Lindisfarne, foreshore walks, boats and established neighbourhoods give life a strong connection to the water. There is appeal in being able to step out of the house and follow the shore, with shops, schools and the city still part of the picture.
Clarence also reaches well beyond the urban shoreline. The Coal River Valley and Richmond offer an older village and agricultural landscape, where gardens, vineyards and Georgian country homes suggest quite a different way to spend a week. Towards the coast, that changes again, with beach communities and more room between houses.
Everything on this side depends on the Tasman Bridge. Drive it at a quarter past eight on a weekday before you decide, not on the Sunday you fell for the view.
Riverside Eastern Shore sits around $850,000 to $950,000; Richmond and the Coal River Valley $850,000 to $1m.
Sorell and the Southern Beaches
There is a difference between driving to the beach and living somewhere the beach becomes a habit. A walk before breakfast. Children coming home with sand in their shoes. Knowing what the water looks like in every sort of weather.
That is much of the pull of the Southern Beaches. Around Dodges Ferry, Seven Mile and Carlton, the history of holiday houses still lends parts of the coast an informal feel. If you have spent years imagining a place by the sea, that ease may be part of what you came for.
Sorell handles the practical side of living out here. Beyond it, the rural country towards Bream Creek and Marion Bay offers another possibility: productive land, broader horizons and a little more distance from the city.
If you expect to work in Hobart, spend time making the journey. The coast deserves to be enjoyed on a working Tuesday as well as a Sunday afternoon.
Sorell and Midway Point sit around $700,000 to $800,000; the Southern Beaches $650,000 to $750,000.
Kingborough and the coast south of Hobart
South of Hobart, there are places where you wind home under tall gums and others where the last part of the day naturally takes you down to the water’s edge. That closeness to beach and bush is a large part of Kingborough’s appeal.
Kingston keeps the practical things close. Around Kingston Beach and Blackmans Bay, a swim or a walk along the sand can fit between finishing work and making dinner. Inland, the attraction may be a native garden with established trees, some room to grow things and a little more privacy.
As you move towards Margate, Snug and Coningham, the city feels further away in exchange for being at the gateway to the Channel and the Huon Valley. For people who want a quieter place to return to, that can be exactly the point.
The Southern Outlet is the one road in and out. Most days it is fine; on the others, everyone is on it with you. The choice is about the sort of homecoming you want; then it is worth understanding how the road, the winter sun and the land around the house will support it.
Kingston sits around $800,000 to $900,000; Blackmans Bay and Taroona $950,000 to $1.05m; Margate $850,000 to $950,000.
A few things worth knowing
before you move
People often arrive with a clear picture of the house and a less developed picture of everything attached to it. Our 15 Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving to Tasmania helps you begin asking the questions that make the whole picture clearer, while there is still time to act on the answers.
A HOME THAT FITTED THE LIFE
Moonah, bought two years early.
An interstate couple planned to move to Tasmania in two to three years. They wanted to buy their future home first, let it in the meantime, and arrive when the timing was right.
Their initial search centred on familiar Hobart suburbs. As we explored the brief, what mattered became clearer: character, walkability, cafés, green space and a neighbourhood they could feel part of.
We introduced them to Moonah, which had not been on their original shortlist. A restored character home met the brief, and we coordinated the building assessment, market analysis and legal review before purchase.
They have two years of rent coming in, a key in a drawer in Melbourne, and a street they already think of as theirs.
How we work with you.
Kafka and Bron lead our work across Hobart and the south, supported by the wider Shepherd team. We buy right across Tasmania, from the North West Coast to the Huon: see all eight regions.
Shepherd's Watch
YOUR SEARCH, WITH US BESIDE YOU
You’re committed to buying here, perhaps a few months from the search becoming serious. We stay across your brief and act as your sounding board, assessing the properties you find and sharing the standouts that cross our desk. We step in when you need more, and your place in Shepherd’s Way is held for when you’re ready.
Shepherd's Way
WHEN WE LEAD THE SEARCH
You’ve made the decision and would like to buy, usually within six months. We search proactively, including off market and before properties reach the market, shortlist and assess, and represent you through negotiation and settlement.
Property Advisory
FOR A SINGLE SITUATION
A property you’ve found, a negotiation, a location you want tested. We agree the work around the one decision in front of you.
The seasons, the table and the ordinary week.
Living here
Climate and the seasons
The seasons are part of the pleasure of living here. Summer gives you long evenings and reasons to stay outside. In winter, snow on the mountain changes the view from the kitchen window, and a warm, sunny room becomes somewhere you are very glad to be. Spring can bring several sorts of weather in an afternoon. Central Hobart is the reference for the wider region: summer days around 21°C, winter nights around 5°C, and about 610 mm of rain a year. The mountain slopes are wetter, and elevation, shelter and distance from the coast change the picture across the area.
Food and culture
Hobart rewards people who like to eat well and take an interest in where things come from. A Sunday at Farm Gate Market can settle what you are cooking that night; a 25-minute drive into the Coal River Valley can turn buying a bottle of wine into an afternoon out. Mona and Dark Mofo are part of the cultural life, along with theatre, galleries and the smaller places you gradually find for yourself: a favourite restaurant, an exhibition you return to, somewhere you take friends when they come to stay.
Everyday connections
As Tasmania’s capital, Hobart brings together the major hospitals, public and independent schools, the university and a newly expanded airport connecting you to the mainland. Those connections matter if work or family still takes you elsewhere. Being on the right side of the river for your work, or close to the school you have chosen, may give you more of what you came here for: time to enjoy where you live.
Greater Hobart
Begin with the life you have in mind.
You may already have a house saved, or a neighbourhood you return to whenever you visit. You may simply know that you would like the next part of life to feel different. Tell us what is taking shape. We can help you understand where it might fit, what it would involve and how to approach it well.