Buyers sleep rough to break in to property market

PHOTO: Somerset Estate, Bannockburn, Vic 3331

Homebuyers endured a cold night outside a Ryrie St, Geelong office to be at the front of a queue for new housing estate blocks.

It’s takes a brave soul to camp out in the elements on a cold, wintry night but a hardy bunch was keen to be at the front of the line as the latest stage in a burgeoning housing estate went on sale.

The intrepid group were rugged up for the night in camping chairs outside Ray White Geelong’s Ryrie St offices saving their spot in the queue when the blocks went on sale on Saturday morning.

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Selling agent Laurie McGovan said a few more joined the party in the morning as the blocks in Bannockburn’s Somerset estate went up for sale.

Camping out is not a new phenomenon for homebuyers keen to get the best position in new land estates, with an Ocean Grove development making headlines in 2021.

Mr McGovan said there are still blocks available at Somerset Estate after the weekend.

“We’ve done over half of them in the release and we’ve still got a few to go,” Mr McGovan said.

“Quite a bit of inquiry has come in over the weekend and a few buildings have been contacting us with potential buyers.”

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Mr McGovan said some of the buyers weren’t new to the estate.

“Some of them have been waiting for this release. Some had missed out last time so they were pretty enthusiastic,” he said.

“They’re pretty good sized blocks, nothing under 500sq m up to some of them were over 900sq m.”

Buyers camped outside Ray White’s Geelong office in Ryrie St to be front of the queue when the next stage of Bannockburn’s Somerset estate went on sale on Saturday.

The properties measuring from 502sq m to 826sq m sold for between $325,000 and $495,000.

“The average price is in the $360,000s in this stage,” he said.

Somerset estate is on the western side of Bannockburn, running between Shelford Rd and McPhillips Rd.

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The Bannockburn P-12 College is built in the centre of the estate, allowing a Catholic school to open in the town on the old primary school site.

“It’s a really popular spot for young families,” he said.

“They’ve earmarked the blocks that they want, and made sure they don’t miss out.”

But Mr McGovan said time is running out, with only a couple more stages until the entire project has been developed.

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“The shire are going to need to be looking at doing some rezoning out there.

There are blocks that are marked inside the town boundaries (for housing) but are not rezoned yet.”

Titles are expected in the second half of 2023.

Bannockburn is the capital of the Golden Plains Shire, where the population has climbed almost 1200 people between 2016 and 2021, according to ABS census data.

The data shows that Golden Plains Shire has a significantly higher proportion of young people compared to the Victorian average, with 33.2 per cent of people aged 0 to 24 years.