These are the top 10 suburbs in Melbourne’s improving market

Melbourne property values and land sales are on the up but local experts have mixed opinions on whether to call it the beginning of a sustained recovery.

Listings are on the rise too, easing price pressure but indicating to sellers that previously reluctant sellers are making a move for the spring selling season.

Price boosts are being seen across a range of Melbourne suburbs, with PropTrack data commissioned by API Magazine revealing the the largest quarter-on-quarter change for house and unit growth value.

Leading the charge for houses, Riddells Creek is up 13 per cent from $948,000 last quarter to $1,070,000, and Olinda is up 12 per cent from $1,010,000 to $1,135,000.

For units, the top performing suburbs include Balwyn North, Bentleigh, Box Hill South, Templestowe Lower and Malvern.

Houses

Suburb	Median: last quarter	Median: current	Quarterly change
Riddells Creek	$948,000	$1,070,000	13%
Olinda	$1,010,000	$1,135,000	12%
Mont Albert North	$1,565,000	$1,701,500	9%
Chadstone	$1,190,000	$1,263,000	6%
Lysterfield	$1,260,000	$1,327,500	5%
Armadale	$2,380,000	$2,495,000	5%
Macleod	$1,052,501	$1,102,500	5%
Knoxfield	$880,000	$920,000	5%
Keilor	$967,500	$1,010,000	4%
Officer South	$862,500	$900,000	4%

Units

Suburb	Median: last quarter	Median: current	Quarterly change
Malvern	$662,500	$745,000	12%
Templestowe Lower	$869,300	$971,000	12%
Box Hill South	$825,000	$909,500	10%
Bentleigh	$636,500	$700,000	10%
Balwyn North	$1,126,000	$1,237,500	10%
Mentone	$608,000	$655,000	8%
Fairfield	$562,500	$603,500	7%
Heidelberg	$618,000	$658,000	6%
Mordialloc	$622,500	$662,500	6%
Williamstown	$677,500	$720,000	6%

Days on the market vary between 17 and 20.5 for houses, and 23 to 27 for units, with Bayswater North having the shortest days on the market for houses at 17, and Ringwood East the shortest for units, at 23 days.

Melbourne property turning corner

Steve Janes, Real Estate Agent, aussieproperty.com, acknowledges the Melbourne market’s wheel is finally turning.

“Transactions are happening, people are being realistic, and I think three to six months ago there was probably more uncertainty and there seems to be a bit more confidence on both sides of the transaction now.

“My feeling is the number of buyers in the marketplace has reduced but even more so the number of sellers has also reduced.

“Potential sellers can’t really find anything to suit an onward purchase, or somewhere to move to, so they are really just sitting tight.”

The Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV)’s latest auction results reported a clearance rate of 78 per cent, up from 71 per cent in the previous week, and from 537 auctions reported.

REIV’s total volume from 316 properties sold was $488 million and an additional $99 million came from 127 private sales.

Melbourne was the only city to see a decline in week-on-week auction activity.

Top five Melbourne suburbs for listings

Listings are up 200 per cent in the Weir Views, which is one of top five Melbourne suburbs identified in REA Group’s July PropTrack Report, for their year-on-year increase, and includes Moonee Ponds up 124 per cent, Chadstone, 108, and Malvern East and Clayton both up 105 per cent.

“Activity is likely to continue increasing over the next few months as we head into the spring selling season, with activity likely to peak over October and November,” Angus Moore, Senior Economist and Report Author, PropTrack, said.

Housing developments are largely the cause, but the report’s overall figures show Melbourne has bucked a nationwide trend in the usually quiet month of July by increasing its listings 5.2 per cent. Year-on-year, listings are up 9.1 per cent, however, the PropTrack report stresses the figures reflect a low base starting point from an even slower July 2022.

Source: PropTrack

Victorian residential development sales company, RPM Group, has seen a rise in land sales for the first time in 18 months, documented in its just released Greenfield Market Report Q2 2023.

“In a normal market, we do around 1,600 lots per month and we were around the 500 lots per month through November, December, January, then it got back up to 650 and we’re now back up, for two months in row, at 750 lot sales, and it feels like we’ve reached the trough because it’s very similar numbers to our last trough, which is back in the middle of 2019,” Luke Kelly, Managing Director, RPM National, told API Magazine.

“These all look like good signs, and we now need to not have interest rates go up further because there are some good genuine deals in our space at the moment for land developers and for builders, and while they’ve been playing catch up with construction in the last couple of years, where timeframes for delivering a block back then blew out to 18 to 24 months, that’s now come back to within nine to 12 months,” Mr Kelly said.

The report illustrates the growth in the Northern Growth Corridor of Melbourne, in areas like Whittlesea and the City of Hume, that takes in established suburbs of Broadmeadows, Tullamarine and Gladstone Park in the south, the developing residential suburbs of Craigieburn, Greenvale, Mickleham, Kalkallo and Roxburgh Park in the north-east and the Sunbury township in the north-west.

They have had the highest proportion of growth of all corridors in a decade at 35 per cent, where owner-occupiers made up 73 per cent of buyers with just over half being first home buyers.

CoreLogic identified the largest listing rises as being in Melton – Bacchus Marsh, Sunbury, Macedon Ranges, Moreland North, Stonnington East and Essendon.

While the city area of Stonnington East gets a mention, Harley Toyle, Sales Consultant and Auctioneer, Buxton Real Estate Group – Stonnington, told API Magazine the neighbouring inner circle suburbs of South Yarra, Windsor, Prahran are three core areas where stock levels are very low.

“From a housing perspective, stock levels are very extremely strained, so there is just not a lot on the marketplace; there are still a lot of buyers out there, there’s still really good sentiment, but there just isn’t a lot on the market, which is bolstering prices,” Mr Toyle said.