Two towns in Victoria, Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove, continue to buck the softening trend in the capitals’ markets, according to an article published on realestate.com.au.
The early parts of this year recorded a flattening in prices, but Bellarine Property agent Ben Roberts told the Open House podcast that he did not believe prices would decline because demand continues to be strong.
Ocean Grove posted a 9% annual price growth with a median price of $695,000. Barwon Heads, meanwhile, logged a 2% yearly decrease and a median house price of $900,000, according to CoreLogic’s data.
Barwon Heads appears to be a more unstable market due to lower sales volume and the number of top-end properties. The time on market, though, is a sign that the demand in the town is robust, with houses selling on average in about 37 days — 10 less than across the river.
“There’s a big difference to, say, Melbourne and Sydney, where there’s been a market change; we haven’t seen it. We’ve probably seen a few less buyers, and some urgency was taken out for a period of time, but now what we’ve seen is things are still transacting, people are still buying and still have some confidence to buy here,” Roberts said.
Roberts said that a property player from Melbourne who is selling for $2 million could come to the town and buy for $1 million or less.
Results in Barwon Heads earlier this month “[defy] all logic,” Roberts said.
“We just sold a property last week that we sold less than 18 months ago in Barwon Heads on 300 square meters of land for $1.32 million and we’ve just re-sold it. It was above 20% growth basically in 14 months, 15 months’ time,” he said.
Buyers become attracted to the area because it is landlocked.
“You’ve got exclusive streets that people will keep outbidding (each other) to be in,” Roberts said.
