Victoria’s regional areas slated for astronomical growth by 2028 have been revealed, including 14 towns where property prices could double. SEARCH YOUR SUBURB
Exclusive new data from PropTrack predicts that if prices grow at the same pace as in the past five years, areas such as Bright, where the typical home costs $1.25m, could hit a shock median price of $3.551m.
Surf Coast town Anglesea is also forecast to jump from a current median of $1.83m to $4.186m, while properties in Point Lonsdale could reach $3.189m from $1.51m.
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The price falls recorded over most of last year have begun to reverse in 2023, with April marking the fourth consecutive rise in national home values.
2 McConnell Close Anglesea is for sale with a $1.395m-$1.45m price guide.
Also in Anglesea, 90 Noble St recently sold for $2.175m.
Venus Bay homes are also tipped to double in price, such as 39 Amanda Cres which is on the market for $649,000.
Great Ocean Properties Aireys Inlet director Marty Maher said Anglesea was popular among buyers seeking a lifestyle property rather than somewhere to live permanently.
“Torquay and Jan Juc have more of an owner-occupier, urban feel, while Anglesea is more of a lifestyle town,” Mr Maher said.
“A lot of buyers are also asset swapping, so they’ll downsize from their Camberwell or Hawthorn house into a luxury unit somewhere in the city that they can lock up and leave, and then have something on the coast as well to form part of their lifestyle plan.”
The 2026 Commonwealth Games could also contribute to demand in regional areas, with the Games scheduled to take place across Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat and Gippsland regions.
In the Gippsland area, coastal hamlet Venus Bay was in PropTrack’s top three growth towns, with a current median sale price of $680,000 that may reach $1.567m by 2028.
Ray White Inverloch principal Fiona McMahon-Hughes said buyers were thinking forward to the Games and looking to buy properties they could earn an extra income from in that period by renting them out as short-stay accommodation.
“They know the Commonwealth Games will mean a lot of accommodation is needed,” Ms McMahon-Hughes said.
“But not just when the Games are on, they’re also snapping up bargains now to potentially earn that extra income through short-stay holiday homes.”
She added that Venus Bay was a “really unique little pocket” that was popular for holidayers, or those splitting their time between the seaside town and the city.
“I can only see growth in the future, we have a lot of people who bring forward their retirement or who work 9-5 and start positioning themselves in a town they want to retire to where there’s a community,” Ms McMahon-Hughes said.
Venus Bay is a small coastal hamlet popular among retirees and holidayers.
11 Fishermans Rd, Venus Bay, is for sale for $995,000.
PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan also noted that the Commonwealth Games might help to highlight regional areas as anything that brought infrastructure, awareness and focus to these areas was a “big positive”.
Mr Ryan said regional areas of Victoria had seen huge increases in demand in the past five years and the number of buyers who were considering these “pleasant locations” year-round had shifted post-Covid.
“We’ve always seen this flow of people moving from Melbourne to regional Victoria. That’s existed before the pandemic, but the pandemic kind of supercharged those flows,” Mr Ryan said.
“And I think what’s also important there is it changed the composition of who was able to do that … rather than it being empty nesters or people approaching retirement age, there’s more people with remote work that are prime working age like high-income earners.”
He added that this influx of remote workers in regional areas was part of the reason towns like Bright saw a “supercharged” price growth during the pandemic.
Bright was the No. 1 regional town forecast to double in price by 2028, with homes such as 22 Leader Reef Drive for sale for $2.79m.
25 Mountbatten Ave, Bright, is also on the market with a $1.5m price tag.
Point Lonsdale has also seen immense growth in the past five years. 20 Norman Cres is for sale with a $1.5m-$1.6m price guide.
“It comes down to this symbiotic thing where as more people move to regional locations, that brings more development, which makes it more appealing for more people to move and these places kind of snowball and grow,” Mr Ryan said. “Looking forward, those kinds of trends are probably likely to continue.”
Despite this, NJP Advocates director Nicole Jacobs said buyers who bought regionally in recent years were starting to pull back on purchasing holiday homes due to higher interest rates and the rising cost of land taxes.
“People’s lifestyle properties are now on the market because we’re seeing a doubling of land tax, so people are starting to reassess if they need it,” Ms Jacobs said.
She added that holiday homes were usually “the first thing to go” when purse strings were tightened.
“A lot of people moved down to those areas during the Covid periods and prices were obviously cheaper, but the growth rate since then was phenomenal so homes will struggle to sell for what they were bought for.”
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