By Alesha Capone
Demand for residential land in Melbourne’s western growth corridor is outstripping supply, according to the RPM real estate group.
The residential development sales, marketing and advisory agency last week released its residential market review for the three months to September 30.
The western growth corridor, which covers Wyndham, Melton and Bacchus Marsh, experienced 3332 lot sales – a seven per cent increase across the period and also the highest across all growth areas.
RPM’s project marketing managing director, Luke Kelly, said that 2779 lots in the western growth corridor were released for sale in the September quarter, adding to the 1800 lots already on the market.
“There is more demand than there is supply and that is putting a lot of pressure for developers to continue releasing at that rate,” Mr Kelly said.
He said the market “was operating at a level never seen before” with more than 2500 vacant land lot sales per month across Melbourne and Geelong in the past nine months, compared to a usual median of 1500 sales per month.
Mr Kelly said the reasons behind this included low interest rates and the number of people with equity in their established homes, who were looking to buy an investment property.
Mr Kelly said that with Melbourne’s median house price now $1 million or higher in suburbs such as Altona, Maribyrnong, Oak Park and Frankston South, buying a house and land package in Wyndham for about $620,000 was relatively affordable.
“The result of that is that if people renting in those suburbs want to buy, they tend to buy a bit further out,” he said.
“It’s a good time to buy in Wyndham.
“These sort of ingredients suggest there could be some prices rises in the future.”
The RPM report said that Melbourne’s median lot price has reached $326,000.
In between July and September, Wyndham experienced a 29 per cent escalation in gross lot sales, its highest number in four years.
The median price for a vacant residential 400 square metre lot stands at $282,000 in Manor Lakes, $334,000 in Werribee, $367,000 in Tarneit, $370,000 in Truganina and $499,000 in Point Cook.
