Broadbeach Liveability Snapshot
Broadbeach, at a glance
Position, central Gold Coast beachside suburb immediately south of Surfers Paradise and north of Mermaid Beach
Distance to Brisbane, approximately a 1 hour drive
Commute to Gold Coast Airport, approximately 30 minutes
Vibe, polished and high-amenity, beachside and urban without the chaos of Surfers Paradise
Best for, downsizers, professional couples, lifestyle buyers and interstate relocators seeking walkable coastal living
Day to day, compact and convenient, with most daily needs accessible on foot
Walkability, high, particularly around Kurrawa Beach, Surf Parade and Oracle precinct
Transport, tram and bus based, excellent north–south connectivity, minimal reliance on a car
Schools, not a traditional catchment suburb, schooling typically accessed in surrounding suburbs
Hazards, property specific, high-rise exposure considerations, limited flood risk compared with river suburbs
If you want the investor view as well, including how the house, unit and duplex market behaves and what drives price movement in different Broadbeach pockets, email me and I can give you a quick, plain-English summary tailored to your budget and property type.
If you are moving over from NZ, start here, at my Moving from NZ hub, with checklists, early admin steps, and Gold Coast suburb guidance.
Overview
Broadbeach is a premium beachfront suburb known for its high-rise apartment skyline, walkable lifestyle, and strong dining, retail, and entertainment offering. It sits in the centre of the Gold Coast strip, with the beach on one side and major shopping and services close behind, including Pacific Fair and Oasis.
Compared with Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach typically feels more polished and dining-focused, with fewer nightlife hotspots and a slightly more settled feel day to day, although it still attracts heavy visitor activity during holidays and major events.
Housing is dominated by apartments, ranging from older walk-up blocks through to landmark towers and newer resort-style buildings. Detached housing is very limited within Broadbeach itself, so the suburb generally suits apartment buyers first, with house buyers usually looking to neighbouring suburbs.
Who Broadbeach suits best
Broadbeach suits downsizers, professionals, lifestyle buyers, and interstate or international relocators who want to live near the beach and be able to walk to cafés, dining, shopping, medical services, and public transport.
It also suits buyers who value the amenity that comes with apartment living, including views, facilities, and security, and who are comfortable with body corporate structures and shared building management.
If you want a quiet, low-density street feel, a backyard, and minimal visitor activity, Broadbeach is unlikely to suit. In that case, Broadbeach Waters, Mermaid Waters, Mermaid Beach, or parts of Bundall often fit better depending on budget and layout preferences.
Why choose Broadbeach
Broadbeach is chosen for lifestyle and convenience. You get a true beachside routine with strong amenity, restaurants and cafés, retail, and public transport all in close reach, without needing to drive everywhere.
For many premium buyers, the draw is the combination of beachfront living and day-to-day practicality. Pacific Fair, the casino precinct, the convention centre, and medical and professional services are all close, so it can feel easy to live here even without a large household setup.
Housing and streetscape feel
Broadbeach is predominantly high-rise and medium-rise apartment living. The streetscape is a mix of tower precincts, older low-rise buildings, and a concentrated dining and retail core, with pockets that feel quieter once you step a few blocks back from the busiest strips.
Liveability can vary from building to building. Aspect, glazing, balcony usability, lift performance, short-stay mix, and body corporate management can materially change the day-to-day experience, even within the same street.
Detached houses are rare in Broadbeach, so if your criteria includes a traditional house, it could be worth shifting your search to a suburb located one block away from the beachfront.
Getting around and commute reality
Broadbeach is one of the most convenient suburbs on the Gold Coast for living without relying heavily on a car. The tram corridor, buses, and the flat coastal layout support easy movement for work, shopping, and lifestyle.
For drivers, access to the M1 is typically straightforward via Hooker Boulevard, and commute times to major employment nodes like Southport, Robina, Varsity Lakes, and the airport are generally workable, depending on peak-hour conditions.
Schools and education
Queensland state school zoning is address-based, not suburb-name based. The only reliable way to confirm eligibility is to check the exact address in EdMap for the relevant year level and enrolment year.
Using Queensland Government catchment boundary files and a suburb-wide grid check across Broadbeach, the state school catchments that touch Broadbeach include the following. Queensland Government Data+2Queensland Government Data+2
Primary schools your Broadbeach address may be zoned for
Broadbeach State School
Surfers Paradise State School
Secondary schools your Broadbeach address may be zoned for
Miami State High School
Merrimac State High School
When researching Gold Coast schools online, you will often see mixed reviews. That is common in larger, centrally located catchments with diverse student populations. Visiting the school, understanding catchment rules, and considering your child’s needs will give you far more useful insight than review sites alone.
If you are relocating with kids and want help shortlisting schools and aligning catchments with your housing search, I offer a Family Relocation Concierge option, details are on my services page.
Parks, sports and lifestyle amenities
Broadbeach is built around the beach lifestyle. The foreshore and beachfront paths support walking, cycling, and daily outdoor time, and Kurrawa Park is a major hub for events, weekend movement, and casual beach routines.
Beyond the foreshore, Broadbeach offers easy access to gyms, studios, and organised sport options in neighbouring suburbs, but the suburb’s strongest lifestyle feature is the beach, the walkability, and the ability to build a daily routine around coastal access.
Convenience and day-to-day essentials
Day-to-day convenience is a major strength. Grocery options, medical services, retail, dining, and transport are close and easy, with Pacific Fair and Oasis providing strong coverage for everyday needs and specialist retail.
For many residents, the practical reality is fewer errands by car and more walking, especially for coffee, dining, beach time, and local shopping.
Dining and cafés
Broadbeach is one of the Gold Coast’s strongest dining precincts, with a clear focus on restaurants, cafés, and a more grown-up night-out feel than party nightlife. It attracts locals and visitors, and it can feel busy during peak periods, particularly weekends, holidays, and event weeks.
Shopping and everyday services
Shopping access is one of Broadbeach’s biggest advantages, with Pacific Fair and Oasis nearby plus a high density of everyday services including beauty, health, allied services, and professional services within a short radius.
This supports a lifestyle where the suburb functions as a genuine daily base, not just a holiday location.
Community profile
Broadbeach has a mixed community profile. You will find owner-occupiers, downsizers, professionals, and long-term apartment residents, alongside a meaningful share of renters and short-stay visitor activity depending on building mix.
The feel can shift significantly by building type and street. Some pockets feel settled and residential by apartment standards, while others feel more transient due to holiday volume and event-driven movement.
Crime and safety
Broadbeach has a higher crime profile than many residential Gold Coast suburbs because it functions as a major beachfront activity and entertainment precinct, with high foot traffic around the dining strip, The Star precinct, Kurrawa Park, light rail stops and surrounding retail areas. Based on 2024 data, Broadbeach records materially higher crimes per capita than both Queensland and Australia overall, driven primarily by property crime and public-order-related offences. Many offences are opportunistic and location-driven, but overall volumes are higher than in low-density family suburbs.
Broadbeach can rank worse on a per-resident model because the suburb carries heavy visitor activity and a smaller resident base, so offences that occur in high-traffic precincts inflate crimes per 1,000 residents more than they would in larger, more residential suburbs.
Headline figures (2024):
Crime rank – 49/100
Higher score indicates higher overall crime relative to populationTotal offences – 2,729
Crimes per 1,000 residents – 402.15
Queensland – lower
Australia – lowerViolent crimes – 133 total
Violent crime rate – 19.60 per 1,000 residents
Queensland – 8 per 1,000
Australia – 11 per 1,000Property crimes – 865 total
Property crime rate – 127.47 per 1,000 residents
Most reported offence groups: The majority of crime in Broadbeach is concentrated around high-activity and high-traffic areas and includes a mix of opportunistic property offences and public-order-related incidents linked to tourism and nighttime economy activity.
Top reported offence categories in 2024:
Theft – 636 offences
Drug dealing and trafficking – 853 offences
Disorderly and offensive conduct – 284 offences
Likelihood of being affected:
Chance of being a victim of violent crime – 1 in 51
Queensland – 1 in 123
Australia – 1 in 89Chance of being a victim of property crime – 1 in 8
Queensland – 1 in 22
Australia – 1 in 26
This reinforces the pattern in the data: Broadbeach’s higher risk is primarily linked to its role as a major beachfront and entertainment precinct, with property crime and public-order offences being the main considerations rather than elevated risk across quiet residential buildings.
Trend direction:
Total crime in Broadbeach increased by 11.48% from 2023 to 2024
Long-term trends show elevated offence volumes aligned with tourism, events, transport access, and nighttime activity, rather than sharp or abnormal spikes.
Bottom line: Broadbeach offers a premium, walkable lifestyle with exceptional amenities, but it carries a higher crime profile than most residential suburbs on the Gold Coast. For buyers and renters, the practical takeaway is to choose the building and immediate pocket carefully, prioritise secure access and parking, and use street-level tools to assess the area around any shortlisted address.
As with most entertainment precincts, offences in Broadbeach tend to cluster around high-foot-traffic areas and late-night activity corridors, so it is worth checking time-of-day patterns and offence types on the Queensland Police Online Crime Map for any shortlisted address.
Data source: RedSuburbs, 2024. Based on Queensland Police Service offence data and ABS Census population figures. For street-level detail by offence type and time period, the Queensland Police Online Crime Map allows address-specific filtering.
Socioeconomic context, SEIFA
SEIFA provides area-level context rather than insight into individual households. A lower score indicates greater relative disadvantage, and a higher score indicates less disadvantage.
For Broadbeach, the relevant ABS SA2 is Mermaid Beach - Broadbeach (SA2). The Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage, IRSD score is approximately 1037, placing it around decile 7 out of 10 nationally (higher decile indicates less disadvantage).
This result is influenced by Broadbeach’s housing mix. High-density apartment living and a higher share of rental housing in parts of the SA2 can pull SEIFA down compared with suburbs dominated by detached owner-occupied homes. At the same time, Broadbeach includes many high-value, owner-occupier buildings and premium pockets, so lived experience can vary significantly from building to building.
Plain English takeaway: Broadbeach trends mid-to-higher on SEIFA overall, but lived experience varies significantly by building, tenure mix, and micro-location. Suburb-wide statistics matter far less here than selecting the right building and pocket.
Price and rental context
Broadbeach is an apartment-dominant suburb and sits in the upper range of central Gold Coast unit markets, reflecting its beachfront position, walkability, and concentration of amenities. Detached housing exists only in very small numbers, and this has a direct impact on how reliable suburb-level house and family-sized rental data can be.
Median house price, limited data due to very low sales volume
Median unit price, around $1.0–$1.1 million
Median 4 bedroom house rent, limited data due to low rental turnover
Median unit rent, around $750–$800 per week
Medians sourced from realestate.com.au, for 12 months to December 2025.
Because realestate.com.au medians are calculated from recorded sales and rental listings over a rolling 12-month period, they rely on a minimum volume of comparable transactions. In Broadbeach, detached houses and 4-bedroom house rentals trade so infrequently that a suburb-wide median is not always published or is not statistically meaningful. This does not mean these properties do not exist, but rather that there is insufficient like-for-like data in most years to produce a stable median.
As a result, the most reliable suburb-level indicators in Broadbeach are typically the unit median price and unit median rent. Even then, price and rental outcomes vary materially by building and apartment type. Two units with the same bedroom count can sit in very different price brackets depending on building age and quality, owner-occupier versus short-stay mix, aspect and views, floor height, parking and storage, facilities, and body corporate costs.
For buyers and renters, Broadbeach is best understood as a building-led market rather than a suburb-led one. Most serious buyers narrow their search to specific towers or pockets early, because the difference between a quiet, owner-occupier-focused building and a more transient building can be greater than the difference between Broadbeach and a neighbouring suburb.
Plain English takeaway: Broadbeach medians are most meaningful for units. House and 4-bedroom rental data is often limited due to low transaction volume, and outcomes are driven far more by building selection and position than suburb-wide averages.
Flood, bushfire and natural hazard considerations
Broadbeach has limited flood exposure compared with river and canal suburbs, though ground-level dwellings and basement car parks should still be checked on a property-by-property basis.
Bushfire overlays are generally not a material issue. Insurance premiums can vary by building, so early quotes are recommended.
Quick take, pros and trade-offs
Pros:
Beachside lifestyle, excellent walkability, strong dining and shopping, transport access, low-maintenance living
Trade-offs:
Apartment-focused market, variable body corporate costs, activity and noise in some pockets, limited school catchment appeal
Helpful links
These tools are address-specific, so always check the exact property before relying on suburb-wide assumptions.
School catchments, EdMap
Queensland Police crime map
City of Gold Coast flood planning map
FloodCheck Queensland
City of Gold Coast bushfire overlay mapping RedSuburb crime statistics
Helpful note
Broadbeach is a suburb where building and micro-location selection matter more than suburb-wide averages. Narrowing to a shortlist of buildings early will give you a much clearer sense of liveability.
If you want, I am happy to sanity-check a specific building, street, or apartment against how you want to live day to day – Lets Talk.
