Australia's 20 best performing city and regional property markets over the past decade according to rpdata.com include units in Hobart, while the sleepy regional North Queensland town of Silkwood romped in with an average annual growth rate of 35 per cent over the period.

However, across the 20 capital city suburbs with the greatest average annual price growth over the past decade, Perth dominated with 11 suburbs making the list. Sydney followed with four entries, Darwin and Hobart each had two entries and current star performing city, Melbourne, had just one.

Source: RP Data

Affordable suburbs witnessed the strongest growth over the last decade according to RP Data. Thirteen suburbs in the Top 20 have a current median price below $300,000. Eighteen of the 20 suburbs detailed currently have a median price below $400,000.

Outside the capital cities, the strongest annual median price growth of 35 per cent was in the North Queensland township of Silkwood. Mirroring the results across the capital city markets, the majority of the best performers during the past decade have been for houses rather than units.

In summary, many of the capital city suburbs detailed are situated on the outskirts of cities and have seen strong growth due largely to the fact that in most instances pricing has come from a very low base ten years ago. In regional areas it has again generally been remote areas or those on the outskirts of larger regional markets which have seen prices grow from a very low base.

Source: RP Data

ANZ’s online brokerage E*Trade Australia is expected to open up several overseas sharemarkets, including Singapore and New York. E*Trade will undercut rival CommSec on fees for international trades. There are 2 million people with online trading accounts in Australia and growing fast.

Commonwealth Bank's CommSec has more than 50 per cent of the market, and E*Trade accounts for more than 25 per cent. E*Trade’s customer growth has increased ''sixfold'' after ANZ allowed banking customers to directly access their trading account, rather than going through a separate site.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald