![33 McCubbin Way, Berwick - for herald sun real estate](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1280 720"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
33 McCubbin Way, Berwick, was among the homes that sold well in 2024 with its $1.405m result helping Melbourne’s south east defy the odds to grow in value.
Melbourne house prices ended 2024 almost $25,000 worse off than they started the year.
There was a $66.5-a-day hit to the city’s typical house value which was about $919,300 in January but dropped to just $895,000 by December 31, according to PropTrack’s latest Home Price Index.
The decline was driven by the highest number of homes for sale in more than a decade as a flurry of investors listed properties in response to the state government’s heightened land tax combined with distressed sales from owners struggling with the highest interest rates since 2011.
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The city’s typical unit dropped about $10,000 over the past year, falling to $590,000.
PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said the Victorian capital’s slump had it poised to become home to one of the nation’s most affordable median dwelling prices, an amalgamation of values for houses and units, within the next six months.
The figure in Perth is now just $7000 short of Melbourne’s $780,000 typical dwelling price, while Adelaide has already overtaken it.
“It would make Melbourne Australia’s third most affordable capital city,” Ms Flaherty said.
“Over the long term, I firmly believe that this will reverse — but for the next couple of years, there’s an enormous amount of opportunity for buyers in Melbourne.”
228 Woodham Ave, Mildura, was bought by an investor for $480,000 in October and is currently available for rent at $495 a week. The regional city is one of the few areas to gain value in 2024.
A turning point for the Victorian capital will not come until population growth outpaces the number of homes being listed for sale, something the economist said could take a while.
In regional Victoria, the median house price dropped from $606,000 to $593,000, while the typical unit fell from more than $415,000 to $411,000.
Though demand could soon potentially be buoyed by economic refugees fleeing other states to find more affordable housing here, Ms Flaherty noted that even an interest-rate cut might not be enough to raise home values in Melbourne significantly given the number of investors selling homes remained “well above historically average levels”.
But there were bright spots with Victoria’s north west region’s median dwelling price rising 1.46 per cent to $319,000 in 2024.
Ms Flaherty noted this could in part be due to lower levels of new housing construction in the region.
16 Coleman Ave, Mildura, was sold for $452,500 in September, by a local investor to someone planning to rent it out.
One Agency Mildura principal Mark Thornton said that since around July there had been a surge in investor demand for the regional city in Victoria’s north west.
“We started to get a lot of calls from buyers’ agents as they were recognising Mildura as a place to provide good returns … and we have never really had to deal with buyers’ agents up here before, but on one day I had five calls from them,” Mr Thornton said.
With investors from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane vying with locals home values up to $600,000 began to rise, the agent added.
The new influx of buyers was dominated by more recent migrant families, with more established investors who had built up multiple-home portfolios across the city opting to sell in face of the land tax increases.
The typical dwelling in Melbourne’s South East also bucked the trend and notched a modest 0.34 per cent increase to $783,000.
2/27 Margaret St, Berwick, sold for $615,000 with a number of buyers interested pushing it well past its expected sale price.
Ray White Berwick’s Debbie Brettoner said it had “definitely been a harder year”, but there had been homes from Clyde to Berwick that had defied expectations.
The most common factor for those doing well was sought after local school zones, Ms Brettoner said.
Home values in every other region in Victoria declined across 2024.
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