VIC Winchelsea and Colac vs Geelong

According to yourinvestmentpropertymag.com.au:

Winchelsea up 34% past 12 months - median house price still only 357k. Very small town not much there.
Colac up 10% past 12 months - median house price still only 285k
Geelong up 21% past 12 months - median house price now at 722k! Has had a great run.

Dual freeway Geelong to Winchelsea completed several months back - now only 25 mins drive between the towns. Winchelsea to Colac section to be completed by early 2019, will be a 45 min drive from Colac to Geelong once finished.
Colac has a growing population, some good schools, diversified employment, Coles/Woolies, Aldi, Target, Bunnings etc and a 45 min commute to Geelong and Lorne and it will be 1.5hours to Melbourne off peak once highway is completed.
I can see another 10% growth coming to Colac in the next 12 months as it's highly attractive to retirees and first home buyers.

 

Colac local. Real estate is flying along and has been building over the past 2 years.
Speaking and dealing with local agents they've never had it so good, days on market are getting really low. Best time to get in would of been 2 years but the investors are still here buying. It's a well positioned town to plenty of cities and the coast. Correct the main companies are in different industries and are expanding. Reckon you'll still get some growth but the best of the buying might be past.

 

Hi @Jaccob Rodda, what are the main growth drivers for Colac?
I would expect Tourism to play a large part but in your opinion are they any other drivers underpinning future growth?

 

Colac is one of the most driven through towns from tourism but it's very much only for a quick bite or loo stop for most. Not to many tourism jobs based out of Colac, the town has failed to capitalise on the massive Lake. We have but the beautiful Otway ranges 10 minuets out of the town that offer lovely walks and waterfalls. Forestry, farming, dairy products, health and lamb processing are the big industries in town. The 3 major employers have all recently had upgrades and grown workforce.

Current drivers are; Low unemployment, affordability, tight vacancies, strong yields and the highway duplication all the way to Melbourne has the town moving. Soon you'll be in the Melbourne CBD in probably about 100 minuets, also talk of 110 speed limit would cut that further.

 

110 speed limit will cut it down by what, 5 minutes?

The art to investing is finding what properties WILL go up in value rather than 'yeah it went up in value x% in the last 24 months'. So despite past trends, Id research into areas that have (or will have) factors that will drive property prices up in the future.

Remember, the state of the market is now labile so the saying, 'past trends dont necessarily predict future trends' runs loud and clear.

Invest wisely. Property isnt an easy game though the majority may think it is.

 

1 year on from my original post. According to yourinvestmentpropertymag.com.au (corelogic data):

- Colac houses up 5.1% - Average yields still decent, 5.1% gross.
- Winchelsea houses up 3.3%
- Geelong houses up 1.4%
Looks like this area is at the peak of this cycle. Colac may get another lift once dual freeway opens (end of this year)

 

Yes Colac is moving along nicely and completion of the dual carriageways is almost done. It's going to benefit more from the ripple effect of Geelong than it's own growth drivers I feel.

Population is only 12-13000 though and if a major employer gets into trouble it's going to have an effect, obviously.