Community News

Melbourne‘s growth story is shifting from the southeast to the north and west, and the latest land pricing data suggests Sunbury is where the value sits.

July figures from selling agent Oliver Hume show a 448sqm lot at Villawood Properties’ masterplanned Redstone community is priced from $425,900, well below comparable lots across Melbourne‘s most popular growth precincts.

The gap to Craigieburn is $136,100 on a like-for-like lot, while even Donnybrook, the closest of the comparison set, carries a $31,100 premium over Redstone. For buyers weighing up a house and land purchase across the northern and western corridors, it is a difference that can cover a significant portion of a build contract, or simply reduce the mortgage.

Villawood COO Andrew Duggan said Redstone Sunbury was delivering something other corridors “simply can’t at the moment, which is a premium masterplanned community at a genuinely accessible price point”.

“A buyer at Redstone is saving well over $100,000 on an equivalent lot in Craigieburn, and they’re not giving anything up to do it. If anything, they’re getting more,” he said.

The pricing comes without a trade-off on amenity. Redstone carries the hallmarks of Villawood’s community model: parks, playgrounds, walking tracks and open space threaded through the masterplan, alongside the public art the developer has become known for. The centrepiece is the $18 million Club Redstone, the 11th residents’ club Villawood has delivered, featuring a lap pool and plunge pool, gym, cafe/restaurant, sports courts, parents’ lounge, function room, and an independent childcare centre, a first for a clubhouse of its kind.

“We have people who come to live here from all different places. They don’t know who their neighbours are going to be. They want to meet new people and make new friends,” Mr Duggan said of the club’s role at Redstone.

“How do you meet each other? We try to provide them with a melting pot of activity. Club Redstone will have a cafe, a parents’ lounge where they can bring their kids and meet up and still see what their kids are doing in the pool, the playground. We even have weddings in our residents’ clubs.”

Villawood’s approach to masterplanning has earned the national developer a string of industry awards spanning urban design, community engagement, sustainability and its residents’ clubs, including a UDIA Great Place Award for Club Rathdowne at nearby Wollert.

Unlike many greenfield estates that arrive ahead of their infrastructure, Redstone sits within an established township. Sunbury offers existing rail, retail, health, education and entertainment amenity, recently bolstered by the new Sunbury and Macedon Ranges Specialist School campus, Sunbury West Primary School, an upgrade to Goonawarra Primary School, a multi-deck commuter car park at Station and Evans Streets, and completed works at Eric Boardman Reserve.

Beyond the town boundary, the Macedon Ranges operate as Redstone’s back yard. Riddells Creek, Gisborne, Hanging Rock and Woodend are all nearby, and Mount Macedon is around 20 minutes away, putting bushwalking, wineries and weekend touring within easy reach of a suburb still connected to central Melbourne by rail.

The area also carries more history than most growth corridors. Sunbury hosted the Sunbury Pop Festival in the early 1970s, remembered as Australia’s answer to Woodstock, staged along Jacksons Creek at the back of what is now Redstone. A young Queen were famously booed off stage at the 1974 festival, prompting Freddie Mercury to fire back that when the band returned to Australia, they would be the biggest band in the world. Redstone’s sales centre nods to the era with a 7 by 21-metre mural of the band on its wall.

Sunbury’s history runs deeper still. Emu Bottom Homestead dates to Melbourne‘s earliest days of European settlement, Rupertswood was the setting for the cricket match that produced The Ashes, and the Sunbury Earth Rings remain significant Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung sites.

SOURCE: This article originally appeared on iBuildNew: https://www.ibuildnew.com.au/news/vic/villawoods-redstone-leads-the-value-stakes-across-melbournes-growth-corridors