Hotspotting: Geelong's future hot spots to buy a home in now
The Geelong suburbs expected to see the best price growth amid the region's recovering house market are revealed in new data.
The Autumn 2025 Price Predictor Index from Hotspotting shows steady rises in quarterly property sale trends across the Greater Geelong region, with half the suburbs given a positive outlook.
Among the suburbs is a swath across the southern Geelong from Armstrong Creek, Mount Duneed and Waurn Ponds, to Highton, Belmont and Newtown where the rising volume of sales is expected to turn into rising prices by the end of the year.
Why Geelong buyers can expect home prices to rise in 2025
Among them, Grovedale remains one of the most consistent markets according to the Hotspotting analysis which uses rising trends in sales activity to predict areas of future price growth.
Fyansford, Leopold, Newcomb, Norlane and Point Lonsdale were other suburbs where sales trends were rising.
Hotspotting founder Terry Ryder said once the sales volumes began rising in an area, prices often followed within six to nine months.
'What typically happens is that people won't get active until they read that there's a boom happening,' Mr Ryder said.
'But by then, they are missing the opportunity.'
Mr Ryder said the rises in Geelong were steady as other research points to a recovery the market remained subdued for a significant period of time.
'We did see signs of an uplift in Ballarat and Bendigo, in terms of sales activity, so I'm not sure why it's not reflecting as strongly in Geelong – but I do expect it to,' Mr Ryder said.
'Geelong is one of the safest places in Victoria to own real estate.'
Mr Ryder said fundamentals that indicated the city's home values would inevitably rise included its strong local economy, good employment options, its relative affordability compared to Melbourne and its appeal as a lifestyle area for families.
Nation-leading population growth was another factor unpinning Geelong's prospects, PropTrack senior economist Anne Flaherty said, but the market was still dealing with the lingering effects of overheated during the Covid pandemic.
Ms Flaherty said Geelong prices remained 11 per cent below the peak in the market in 2022, compared to 4.2 per cent across regional Victoria and 4 per cent in Melbourne.
'One of the reasons we did see those drops is that, in addition to very significant interest rate rises, demand for property in Geelong just drove a massive price growth during those years,' she said.
'As a result of that there was a period of readjustment when things reopened and once those interest rates were increasing over 2022 and 2023.
'There's still a long way to go for Geelong to recover those home values back to those peak levels.'
To put that into perspective, Geelong's $725,000 median home price remains 26 per cent higher than before the pandemic in March 2020.
Jellis Craig Geelong director Marcus Falconer expects a post-election bounce with many people ready to list after buyers return from April holidays.
An interest-rate cut was 'almost certainly locked in' on May 20, he said.
'There's a lot of people that have sold homes looking to re-enter the market over the last quarter,' Mr Falconer said.
'There's also been a significant upswing in the level of investors returning to the Victorian market, which is a welcome trend.'
Mr Falconer said rising investor activity is coming off rising prices across the other mainland states.
'Whether it's with the strong rate of return for rentals and strong demand, there's certainly a lot of people excited by the long-term prospects for Geelong,' he said.
Most buyers now feel that we're over the hump, he said.
'All the correction activity has already been factored in. And now that potentially four or five potential interest rate reductions in the next short period of time, there's basically opportunity to get in at the bottom of the market.'
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