Merrimac Suburb Review

Summary: A compact suburb with an eclectic variety of housing types both higher & lower end all wrapped up in a highly convenient location, Merrimac is a practical, flexible suburb on the Gold Coast that makes for a very versatile place to live.

Its centrally-located position is one of its greatest strengths, making it possible to work or attend school in multiple spots on the Gold Coast without too much excessive drive time. This gives it easy proximity to large shopping centres, a substantial array of education options, and even the beach within a reasonable timeframe.

It manages to sit “in the middle” while also still offering a largely peaceful lifestyle, both streetscape-wise & maintaining a low crime rate which – when combined with its high number of schools for a relatively small suburb – make it great for families overall.

Some of its housing inventory is a little older/unkempt, and it’s got some bizarre mixes of residential housing, religious institutions and wetlands as well as a few unkempt parks, while its only other real weakness is some ambient noise from its main arterial road & and heavy rail line. Other than that, there’s a lot to like here.

Key stats

For a suburb of its relatively small size, Merrimac is one of the more varied and fairly ‘random’ heavily-residential such offerings on the Gold Coast, featuring both the high and mid-lower end all coexisting peacefully alongside one another.

It brings to the table a pretty eclectic housing mix as well as a fairly clear north/south dividing line in terms of streetscape quality, along with smatterings of surprisingly large rural-style properties haphazardly dotted throughout what is otherwise a reasonably built-up area.

There’s everything from semi-budget to quite-premium (and even farm-scale) living on offer here in terms of housing, making for a place that can be suited to a range of budget levels and lifestyles given the differences in prices between each property type.

Merrimac crams in quite a lot of variety within its limited geographical space, as the actual ‘lived in’ part of the suburb is even smaller when you exclude its handful of large green-spaces.

Several significant areas of Merrimac are development ‘no-go’ zones due to being designated as constrained land for various reasons, making the parts that can actually contain houses smaller than you’d think.

These include the likes of large segments of semi-untamed wetlands, as well as a couple of large golf courses which occupy a pretty big chunk of land all up in its duo of Palm Meadows and Lakelands Golf Clubs.

Layout-wise, the suburb sits just to the east of the M1 highway, and again in a north/south spot that’s conveniently geographically-central to the sprawl of the modern Gold Coast. This has several useful benefits, the most obvious of which being the ability to immediately jump on the highway and be travelling at high speed up or down the Gold Coast in short order.

Merrimac’s central location makes it extremely convenient for getting to key Gold Coast amenities such as major shopping centres Pacific Fair (under 15 minutes), and Robina Town Centre (under 10 minutes), as well as the beach at spots like Broadbeach in under 20 minutes. Even Gold Coast Airport is only around 20-ish minutes’ drive away, as is Southport.

Add it all up and you’ve got a highly practical location that helps make up for some of the areas where Merrimac itself otherwise slightly lacks – and even ‘accidentally’ ends up benefitting from as a result anyway… e.g: a lack of noise & a lower crime rate due to having no major shopping centres of its own.

In terms of how it’s structured, Merrimac itself is essentially “cut in half” by its main arterial road in Gooding Drive, which also serves to divide the suburb up somewhat in terms of streetscape and lifestyle.

While it’s not a hard-and-fast rule, the north side of Merrimac is generally more consistently neater/upmarket than its southern counterpart, which by comparison manages to be a little more random/inconsistent in terms of both its streetscape and housing profile.

As a result, summing up the suburb as a whole is basically impossible without going into detail about each ‘slice’ of Merrimac more specifically.

There’s multiple factors at play as to why each side of the suburb feels quite different. First and probably foremost, Merrimac’s south side is largely the older of the two, with houses that date back decades older than its northern brother and less of a ‘master-planned’ aspect to it overall.

This results in a bit more of a hodge-podge of block and land sizes, that range anywhere from smaller units, to the odd larger mansion and even semi-rural-style blocks that have big enough areas for goats and sheep.

Lots of the housing inventory in the south also leans towards older, single-storey homes on narrow/longer blocks, with single garages or even carports more common that your token modern double-garage offering.

That’s not to say there aren’t premium elements here – there’s handfuls of nice, premium houses in the southern half too – it’s just the mix is a little more inconsistent/eclectic. Regardless of streetscape quality, one of this part of Merrimac’s greater strengths is its peace & quiet.

While it has a couple of decently-trafficked roads that wind through it such as Bourton Road and Highfield Drive, these aren’t your 100km/h-type major roads with high levels of speeding car noise, and many of southern Merrimac’s residential back streets which branch off these also tend towards quiet cul-de-sacs.

This means most houses don’t experience too much ambient noise – even the ‘cheaper’ back streets with more closely-packed residential houses and villa complexes – outside of those that happen to sit right alongside Gooding Drive, or in the centre that back the closest onto the suburb’s train line.

There are handfuls of these streets in this area that tend to be quite narrow where its houses are densest, which results in lots of cars parked alongside the roads.

Couple this with the lack of garage space, and you end up with pretty crowded residential roads that make creeping along careful due to needing to let people drive past a factor.

This area is also where Merimac’s larger concentrations of mid-density housing can be found.

While the suburb isn’t one for higher-density apartment buildings or highrises, there are a number of both older and newer townhouse complexes that have sprouted up over time which can help keep housing costs down a bit for those willing to sacrifice on home size.

In addition, Merrimac’s sloping topography means that the southern side of the suburb is lower-lying than the north. Normally this would not be any kind of issue, however significant chunks of southern Merrimac are taken up by wetlands areas that can be occasionally prone to flooding.

While most of the housing in the area isn’t affected by this, pockets of wetlands-adjacent areas off Highfield Drive can sometimes have their roads inundated during heavy rain even if the homes themselves are fine. These wetlands also add extra touches of bird life to the area as well, as many wetlands birds and ducks often dwell in these parts of the suburb.

Another item that can be both a pro and con – one for convenience and the other for noise – also factors in to living here, which is Merrimac’s upcoming addition of a train station. It already receives train traffic passing through due a rail line that runs through (which contributes some ambient noise), however soon the trains will actually stop here as well.

The suburb is set to receive a heavy rail connection as of 2026 (part of the ‘Cross River Rail‘ expansion project), which makes for another method of transport and getting north/south on the Gold Coast a big bonus and something that was sorely needed.

Opening up the option to travel by train and avoid the M1 Highway (and its associated terrible traffic) is a boon for those who it applies to, and provides the option of potentially living in Merrimac and working in Brisbane as a possibility provided you can stomach the length of the commute.

Add this to the already-fairly-decent bus services that run up and down Gooding Drive and Highfield Drive, and you’re going to end up with one of the better-connected overall suburbs on the Gold Coast, particularly when factoring in its location.

One of the other somewhat unusual notables about Merrimac is its array of religious institutions dotted throughout. There are several of these around the suburb, with multiple of them owning significant chunks of land.

You’ve got Jehovah’s Witness halls, Chinese-Christian churches and more which all have significant landholdings in Merrimac, with at least one found in every major ‘compass point’ segment of the suburb.

This slightly-random nature also applies somewhat to southern Merrimac’s parkland as well. Most of its green spaces are closer to the aforementioned untamed wetlands, as well as the odd sprawling “reserve-style” park such as Baymill Park.

These aren’t your typical square-box-with-kids-playground offering; they’re mostly just open pockets of semi-frequently-mowed grass, again likely due to their propensity to getting waterlogged.

Amenity-wise, most of Merrimac’s retail and food offerings lie along its centre Gooding Drive dividing strip. Outside of the small Bourton Road Cafe in the south, pretty much any kind of ‘shop’ Merrimac offers is all clustered around its two major intersections along Gooding Drive.

While it lacks a major shopping centre, or even a token Coles or Woolworths, its little Merridowns Shopping Village still provides enough to get by in a pinch. This quaint little centre offers a mini grocer, butcher, fish & chip shop and takeaway.

Elsewhere its Merrimac Tavern complex offers what passes for ‘entertainment’ in Merrimac, with the pub itself alongside a cafe, pizzeria, bottle shop, etc.

You’ll have to drive outside of Merrimac for any kind of real shopping or dining experience (outside of the suburb’s somewhat-iconic Mike’s Kitchen stakehouse, at least), but again the easy ability to access these in neighbouring suburbs makes this less of a negative factor than you’d think.

So unless you’re the type who absolutely has to have a handful of cafes in walking distance, you’ll likely be fine. It’s a little uneventful for the teenager/young adult crowd in particular, though, with little in the way of entertainment options or ‘hangout spots’.

Merrimac’s “central zone” also comes equipped with a dedicated medical/dental centre with a range of health services, which is a nice touch for practical purposes and potential older residents in particular.

Crossing over to Merrimac’s north side, and things take a turn for the more consistently pleasant (and more consistently pricey).

Its residential cluster here was constructed much more recently, and generally features bigger and more modern houses on larger blocks, as well as more consistently well-groomed nature strips and the like.

It’s overall more upmarket than Merrimac’s southside, with high levels of general ‘house pride’ and freshly mowed lawns more of the norm in this section of the suburb.

Much of this is also simply owed to the more-wild wetlands areas being mostly confined to its southern half below Gooding Drive; whereas this slice of Merrimac gets the benefit of more structured and stable/flat land, and less-frequently inundated lawns as a result.

Its parks are likewise more structured/less overgrown in general, and this is also where the suburb’s flagship park for those with children in Stoner Family Park can be found.

This is a high-quality public green space, with a duo of good playground facilities (one with sand) for the kids, as well as picnic and BBQ amenities and a decent little walking track around its adjacent wetlands.

Merrimac as a whole is also very leafy even through its “less premium” residential streets, with an emphasis toward palm trees that give it that typical “Gold Coast” tropical feel.

Other, smaller ‘corner/pocket-park’ reserve and green areas such as the tiny and playground-equipped Ghilgai Park in the suburb’s south, the aptly-named Bushland Park in its northern residential section as well as various others round out its greenery.

This ensures pretty much every portion of Merrimac’s residential housing has at least one little micro-park within walking distance, and while not all of them are ideal for dogs to run around, they’ll serve there purpose for the kids to burn off energy at least.

The other standout aspect of Merrimac that’s going to be important to most families – both current and aspiring – are its schools.

The suburb boasts one of the highest schools-per-capita ratios of any suburb on the Gold Coast, and there’s a surprisingly extensive range of choices with one basically guaranteed to be within easy walking distance regardless of in which part of Merrimac you live.

On the private side, long-standing institutions such as All Saints Anglican School (offering education from prep through Year 12) and St Michael’s College are well established, while the more recently opened Star of the Sea Catholic School continues to establish a presence in the area.

The public education options in Merrimac are also pretty highly regarded, with both Merrimac State School and Merrimac State High School known for their solid academic programs. The primary campus has the added appeal of being set against leafy bushland, which is a bonus.

Throw in the suburb’s kindy/daycare offerings, as well as all the other options a reasonable drive away in the likes of Robina, Miami, Worongary and various other surrounding suburbs, and parents are pretty spoiled for choice.

Price-wise, Merrimac is still ‘reasonable’ value based on its median price by Gold Coast standards, but this is also a little deceptive.

Part of this is due to the aforementioned lean in the suburb towards older houses/smaller blocks; while this can help keep the purchase price down, you’re also getting a little bit less land for your price in many cases, so that has to be taken into account too.

Merrimac continues to see additional new townhouse complexes added to its inventory recently, particularly in its south & western portions amongst its otherwise roomy ‘farmland’ areas, which have ample space within which to plonk some of this density (development approvals pending, of course).

Add these on to Merrimac’s several already-established townhouse/villa complexes, which tend to get lumped in with the suburb’s entire ‘detached house’ pricing figure, and this is a contributor to making Merrimac look a bit cheaper than it actual is in reality real estate-wise.

However, even factoring this in, for a suburb with this many positives – safety, schooling, location, convenience – to be priced well below most of the suburbs just one click over to the east of it, still makes it somewhat undervalued in our opinion.

Current median prices for houses in Merrimac clock in at the $1,040,000.00 mark, which is well worth it when compared to the jump up in prices for many more ‘brand name’ suburbs that don’t really offer that much of an increase in quality of life.

The Verdict

For a spot with basically no glaring flaws, Merrimac is one of those suburbs that just quietly flies under the radar while people for whatever reason continue to pay overs for other more ‘glamorous’ spots on the Gold Coast instead.

Sure, you can be a little closer to the beach – and pay significantly more money for the privilege – or look further north on the Gold Coast & pay a fair bit less while dealing with significantly more traffic headaches; each to their own.

However when you can instead pay a reasonable price for a suburb that basically registers at ‘above average’ in all key metrics for living like Merrimac does, it seems like a more logical choice for the ‘average person’ to us.

That’s especially true if you happen to be an average family or planning to have kids soon, as Merrimac just rates so strongly in factors that should appeal to that specific demographic (such as schools and low crime) that it’s well worth considering for that combination of positives alone.

It’s basically one of the best family suburbs on the entire Gold Coast for this blend of reasons. Meanwhile, retirees/older residents may also find it appealing due to its golf courses combined with pretty easy access to its medical centre & bigger hospitals in nearby Varsity Lakes/Robina as well.

Add in the point that it’s so versatile and you can work in basically any major ‘section’ of where most Gold Coast working hubs are located without too much of a commute, and the sheer time savings alone in the long term add to its appeal for workers of all dispositions.

Its upcoming train line addition adds another likely property-price-accumulator to the suburb in the longer-term, as well. While it’ll likely never be ‘trendy’ or have that much of a dining scene, and not having a decent-sized supermarket are mild black marks, these are prices that most should probably willing to sacrifice in return for all its other benefits.

As a result, Merrimac remains one of the more unassuming/underrated suburbs on the Gold Coast simply by virtue of the fact that hardly anyone ever seems to talk about it. And that’s exactly the kind of place we both look for & usually recommend here.