Suburb record: a family paid $1,845,000 for 26 Falcon Road, MacLeod, Domain Group data shows. Photo: Supplied It’s a postcode deep in sleepy suburbia, once thought of as a budget-friendly neighbourhood, but Macleod’s property market is waking up — and increasingly to wealthy families.
A string of sales above $1 million in the Springthorpe estate has helped shoot median house prices up an astonishing 33.4 per cent in the past 12 months, according to Domain Group data. A median house in Macleod now costs $867,500, but agents say seven-figure sales have become par for the course.
Even buyers with a budget upwards of $1.5 million are considering the leafy suburb, having been priced out of the family homes in the inner and outer east.
The previous suburb record stood at $1,434,000 for 11 Chapman Street, Macleod. Photo: Nelson Alexander
It’s a trend Domain Group chief economist Andrew Wilson said was spreading along the Greensborough train line, given one million dollars goes much further there than in suburbs on the other side of the Yarra River.
“These are very well established, very leafy low-rise suburbs, that have traditionally been middle to lower priced,” Dr Wilson said. “But we’re now clearly seeing those buyers re-examining the middle ring of the north east.”
In December last year, a family paid $1,845,000 for a builder’s own five-bedroom house, according to Domain Group data. The price smashed Macleod’s previous suburb record of $1,434,000, which had been set just months earlier.
Last month 3 Hideaway Turn, Macleod sold for $1.14 million to a buyer from the inner north. Photo: Barry Plant
Auctioneer Gordon Hope, who declined to comment on the price of the Falcon Road sale, said the area was increasingly becoming a consideration for higher end buyers who would have traditionally looked in Eaglemont and Ivanhoe.
“Macleod is now starting to be recognised as an area with strong results,” Mr Hope, of Nelson Alexander, said. “It started in Heidelberg, then Rosanna and now Macleod.”
Agents say the Springthorpe estate, a master-planned community on the old site of the Mont Park Asylum, is the most desirable part of Macleod and the area that commands the highest prices.
Springthorpe began development in the early 2000s, so the houses in the estate are all newly built. Agents say the area has a close-knit community, including an active country club.
Barry Plant Ivanhoe director Kieran Whaley said the estate was originally fairly expensive to buy into, and so most properties are built to a high-end quality.
“If you draw a ring 15 kilometres around the city and you’re looking for new homes on good-sized blocks of land, Springthorpe is one of the best you’d find,” Mr Whaley said.
“People are now spending really big money to be apart of that.”
As well as buyers being priced out of the east, families are increasingly coming from the inner-north for larger blocks and access to better schools such as Macleod College or Ivanhoe Grammar, Mr Whaley said.
Mr Whaley last month sold a four-bedroom house in Springthorpe for $1.14 million at auction to a family from Thornbury who wanted a larger land holding.
“I can’t see the upward pressure on prices stopping any time soon,” Mr Whaley said.