‘You'd be silly to sell': The Melbourne suburbs no one wants to leave

Sydney Morning Herald

18-07-2025

Melbourne buyers looking for a suburb where they can find a forever home, surrounded by others who want the same, have options in both prestige and affordable neighbourhoods.
Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) figures show properties change hands the least in the blue-chip Mornington Peninsula suburb of Portsea, statistically part of greater Melbourne, where the median dwelling value is $2.64 million. Those who sold during the 12 months to April had held on to their properties for a median period of 21.9 years.
It was followed by Vermont South in the leafy outer-east, which had a median hold period of 20.6 years and Tootgarook at 18.9 years. Their median values were $1,488,000 and $897,000, respectively.
Cotality head of Australian research Eliza Owen said the top suburbs all recorded median hold periods – the time between sales of a property – longer than the city's median of 9.6 years.
'What we usually see with suburbs associated with long hold periods is they tend to be associated with areas that are long-held family suburbs,' she said. 'Suburbs that have a relatively low portion of renters … they're often suburbs where young couples with kids were buying 10 to 20 years ago.'
A cluster of suburbs in the Brimbank council area, west of Melbourne, fit into this category and were relatively affordable, Owen said, despite being among the longest-held neighbourhoods across the city.
Keilor Downs, Delahey and Taylors Lakes were sixth, seventh and eighth on the list and had median hold periods between 16.2 years and 16.7 years. Their median values ranged from about $700,000 to almost $1 million.
Lifelong residents there aren't surprised. Dimitra Mouyis said she rarely had to leave the area when living there.