Gippsland poised to be regional Victoria’s next property star

Gippsland has been touted as Victoria’s next regional real estate hot spot, following a boom in buyer demand as result of the pandemic.

The number of “highly engaged” househunters viewing homes in Metung, on the shores of the Gippsland Lakes, on realestate.com.au notably soared 219 per cent in the year to September 2021.

Mallacoota – which was put on the map by the devastating 2019-20 summer bushfires – also recorded a 163 per cent rise in buyer interest, with Paynesville not far behind at 130 per cent.

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Realestate.com.au measured the number of times a person viewed a property, and whether they shared, saved or contacted the agent as a result, to generate these findings.

Mallacoota Real Estate agent representative Kirsty Hargreaves said her local market had been “moving quickly” in the past 12 to 18 months.

Ms Hargreaves said about 80 per cent of the agency’s clients were from out of town, with a typical house sitting around the $700,000-$800,000 price point.

“People have realised that they don’t want to do lockdown in a city, or that they can work from home or that they just don’t want to be working all the time,” she said.

“And there’s a bit of a sense of urgency with properties that are priced well.

“We just listed a one-bedroom property with an amazing view … and it was sitting just below $500,000. We put it up at 4pm in the afternoon and it had sold by 10am the next morning.”

The agent said in the past year a typical listing would be snapped up within a week of hitting the market.

She added demand for vacant blocks was also at an all-time high.

Other regional Victorian markets increasingly catching the eye of buyers are Cobram (157 per cent increase in buyer demand), Cowes (156 per cent) and St Leonards (150 per cent).

It comes as housing values in regions across Australia continue to rise at the fastest annual pace in 35 years, according to a new report from realestate.com.au’s data business, PropTrack.

While the Geelong region continued to generate the highest demand in regional Victoria, interest in housing in the Latrobe-Gippsland area was close behind, the report found.

PropTrack economist Eleanor Creagh said this could be due to buyers being priced out of typically popular regional areas, including Geelong.

“In Geelong, 19 per cent of sales are selling with a premium of more than 10 per cent above listing price,” Ms Creagh said.

“And as a result, you might find that people are being priced out of Geelong and moving further afield to somewhere like Gippsland.”

She said buyers who had the ability to “capitalise on flexible work arrangements”, or those who had decided to completely change their lifestyle, could have the “best of both worlds” in a region like Gippsland.

“The Latrobe-Gippsland region does remain relatively commutable – not as much as Geelong, but in terms of the average suburb distance to the state capital, it’s still within 200km,” she said.

The report also showed in 2020 Melbourne experienced its biggest annual exodus of residents since the Australian Bureau of Statistics records began in 2001.

And a net total of 32,166 people fled the city in the year to March 2021, according to the ABS, with regional Victoria gaining an extra 13,975 net people.

Queensland’s Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast were the country’s most sought-after regional markets, with 74 per cent of interstate searches in the past year coming from Victoria and New South Wales.

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alanah.frost@news.com.au

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