Ballarat leading the regional Victorian house price boom: Hotspotting's Terry Ryder
EXPERT OBSERVER
Regional Victoria remains one of the nation’s leading markets, especially on price performance. Of the 138 suburbs and towns ranked our Price Predictor Index, 116 of them have recorded price growth in the past year.
That means 84% of locations throughout Regional Victoria have growing prices. More than half of those growth markets have increased their median house prices more than 5% in the past year, including many which have had double-digit growth.
The strength of prices in Regional Victoria is confirmed by the latest price data published by CoreLogic on 1 June. House prices recorded, after recording solid increases in March and April, were unchanged in May, while unit prices were up 0.5% during the month.
Regional areas of the state have been boosted by buyers out of Melbourne, including home buyers seeking a more relaxed and affordable lifestyle, while in some cases working remotely for a city business. The coronavirus shutdown period which forced people to work from home is likely to further enhance this trend.
Our Winter survey of sales activity reveals that Regional Victoria has remained quite resilient in terms of sales activity, in the faces of the Covid-19 impacts. There has been only a minor reduction in the number of locations with growing sales activity, compared to the results of our Autumn survey.
There are 27 locations with rising demand. The numbers for the Winter survey are comparable to the results of the previous four quarterly surveys, which generally have indicated that the Regional Victoria market jurisdiction has passed its peak but remains sturdy.
This market was at its strongest throughout 2018, when three consecutive quarterly surveys had 47, 47 and 51 locations with rising sales activity.
But, as our research regularly demonstrates, real estate prices often remain strong long after the peak of the market in terms of sales activity.
This is shown by the many individual suburbs and towns throughout Regional Victoria which have recorded median price growth above 10% in the past 12 months.
Ballarat has been particularly outstanding, with price growth headed by the suburbs of Ballarat Central (up 24%) and Lake Wendouree (23%). Brown Hills, Redan, Alfredton and Sebastopol have all increased between 10% and 12%. Other Ballarat suburbs have increased 7-8%.
The best performers in Geelong have been Drysdale (19%) and Bell Park (10%), while growth in Bendigo has been led by East Bendigo (21%).
But growth markets have been spread widely throughout the state, including Irymple (27%), Tatura (23%), Nagambie (19%) and Euroa (18%).
Other which have risen by between 10% and 14% include Apollo Bay, Portland, Woodend, Churchill, Daylesford and Morwell.
There are numerous locations throughout Regional Victoria which have delivered annual growth of 7-8-9%.
In terms of locations with rising sales activity, which is a pointer to future price growth, the outstanding LGAs are Geelong and Bendigo.
The City of Greater Geelong has provided strong growth markets for the past three years and continues to show resilience. It benefits from its ability to provide an affordable alternative to Melbourne, underpinned by a strong local economy and good links to the nearby capital city.
In our Winter survey we have identified seven growth suburbs and four consistency suburbs, a good result in difficult times. There are also 15 suburbs in Greater Geelong classified as plateau markets.
Bendigo has five growth markets and two consistency ones, in addition to nine plateau markets. This important regional city is benefiting from growing interest from Melbourne buyers and also investors from other parts of Australia.
Bendigo is behind Ballarat in the market cycle so we think has more upside, looking to the future. Ballarat has been a great performer in the past 2-3 years, as the price growth figures show, but is past its peak, with only one suburb remaining with growing sales activity.
The other standout is Latrobe City, where Morwell, Newborough and /Traralgon are all growth locations, while Moe and Churchill are consistency markets.
Other growth markets across the state include Ararat, Benalla, Castlemaine, Gisborne, Romsey, Cobram, Horsham, Mildura, Wonthaggi and Mooroopna.
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
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