Greenbank is the Logan suburb where most dog owners and their furry friends live, according to Animal Medicines Australia’s Pets in Australia report.
A real estate analyst says puppy popularity is at its highest due to the suburb’s “larger properties and family-oriented development at prices”.
State-wide, Greenbank tied with six other suburbs across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and Ipswich to rank fourth. In Queensland, dog owners lived more rurally compared to states like New South Wales and Victoria, where dog owners lived predominantly in major cities.
Senior data analyst from Raywhite Property, Atom Go Tian said the top-ranking suburbs for pet-ownership in Australia were surprisingly different.
“The suburbs on the list and across the different states actually don’t have much in common,” Mr Tian said.
“Apartments seem to dominate in Melbourne, for example, and inner city suburbs, which are very dense, happen to be popular in New South Wales.
“In Queensland, what seems to be very popular are suburbs… where I would imagine you would find larger houses, families, and communities; those are the kinds of suburbs that seem to dominate.”
Because these suburbs and the type of properties they host are so different, Mr Tian said the data didn’t necessarily suggest people moved to dog-friendly areas before adopting a pet.
“It’s really a wide range of suburbs that seem to tell us people will find a dog no matter where they live, instead of the other way around, where they’ll intentionally go for a family-oriented wide suburb, just to get a dog,” he said.
“It would be easier to determine property trends based on dog ownership if we had a list of suburbs that had no dog ownership, but unfortunately, we have a limited list of suburbs, so I wouldn’t be able to say how much dog ownership affects the housing market,” Mr Tian said.
Just under half of Australia’s households – 48% – are dog owners, according to the same report.
Mr Tian said that high rates of dog ownership in regional suburbs like Greenbank could indicate that family-friendly areas with large land block sizes were desirable for pet owners.
The analysis suggests Greenbank’s relative affordability made owning a pet more accessible.
“It’s a cause-and-effect kind of thing, I would say that the house prices and dog ownership are effects, and the cause is more of, you know, family-friendly, wide suburb and spacious houses,” Mr Tian said.
“If you are someone looking to have a dog, it does help to look at where everyone else is staying with their dogs.”
