Victorian suburbs owners never want to leave turning them into millionaires
The Victorian suburbs where homeowners are happiest have been revealed, and most have turned their long-term owners into property millionaires. See if your neighbourhood made the list.
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Victoria is home to some Australia’s happiest suburbs, with homeowners staying put for decades at a time and many of them becoming property millionaires in the process.
From Parkville to St Helena in Melbourne’s north, the typical homebuyer stays put for 20-plus years – longer than almost any other suburb in the nation.
And owners who have stuck by their suburb for the past two decades appear to have been rewarded, with many turning a family home once worth a few hundred grand into a million-dollar or even multimillion-dollar address.
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PropTrack data shows Parkville tops the list in Victoria at 21.26 years, with the typical house price in the suburb surging from $807,500 to $2.369m since it was last on the market.
Home to Melbourne Zoo and Melbourne University as well as several hospitals, only Battery Hill on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast boasted a longer typical ownership at 21.6 years.
St Helena in Melbourne’s north east was second for Victoria at 20.3 years and ninth nationwide, with homeowners having also become millionaires as the price rose from $384,000 to $1.175m.
While across Melbourne the typical house owner sells up every 12.38 years, there are 10 suburbs where they hang on for at least 18 years.
Also among them is Vermont South, the real-life home of TV show Neighbours’ Ramsay St – where TV lore holds that good neighbours become good friends.
And after spending seven years trying to find a way into the suburb, Choco Cai and her young family have now lived there for the past three years, and she said it more than lived up to its TV slogan.
“We are good friends with our neighbours and those at the Holy Name Anglican Church,” Ms Cai said.
Along with husband Hang Deng and kids Freya, 6, and Chace, 8, she makes the most of the area’s well-regarded schools, open spaces and playgrounds at Bellbird Dell Reserve, miniature golf for the kids at nearby Morack Public Golf Course and a range of shopping centres — including one where her children are learning to rollerskate.
“And the streets are wide and there are lovely trees,” Ms Cai said.
PropTrack economist Paul Ryan said a suburb where owners were staying put for more than 18 years indicated it was very family friendly, and suited a range of life circumstances.
“There will be a lot of people who have raised their children there, and if you have everything you need – why would you move?”
Common threads between such suburbs usually include good schools, substantial housing allotments and access to employment options.
And while a loyalty tax hits consumers almost everywhere else, staying put is often a path to wealth when it comes to property.
“The most expensive thing you can do in property is to move home,” Mr Ryan said.
“We have seen very strong growth in the past 20 years; and for owner occupiers all of those capital gains are tax free.”
However, Mr Ryan said for many families entering the market today there would be a need for multiple home moves as their life changed, making it unlikely future generations would see the same opportunity to build wealth without paying additional stamp duty along the way.
Social analyst and demographer Mark McCrindle said owners staying put was a sure sign of a suburb or town’s “liveability”.
“People have to trade off sometimes the liveability for affordability, but your liveability keeps coming up trumps,” Mr McCrindle said.
“A lot of these suburbs have a slightly older average age. So you’ve got people that have invested in those communities and connected with them over a longer term. They lead their life and that life is often intrinsically linked to the particular suburb. It shows that people find their corner of the planet that they love and don’t want to give it up.”
But he warned homes in these suburbs could often be locked away from generations as parents passed them on to their children rather than selling and downsizing.
One of the few breaking this trend was St Helena, where developer Satterley has commenced developing a 250-home mini-suburb within the sought-after pocket.
While the area is already known for its schools, green spaces and prominent shopping centre it hosted just 1056 residences at the time of the 2021 Census.
Satterley Victorian general manager Jack Hoffman said the 250 new homes were mostly houses spread across a 19ha estate that was also home to extensive wetlands.
He added that close to 80 per cent of the almost 100 homes sold in it across the past two years have gone to locals already living within 5km and simply wanting a new version of the suburb’s classic charm.
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