Victoria’s best regional areas for wellbeing boast anything from snow-covered mountains to ocean views – but they are also among the most expensive to buy a house. The Surf Coast, Alpine, Macedon Ranges (some of which falls within the Greater Melbourne boundary), Greater Geelong and Golden Plains local government areas scored the highest among the state’s regional areas in the 2023 Cities and Regions Wellbeing Index by SGS Economics and Planning. People buying second homes, or holiday homes, were mostly moving to the Surf Coast in 2023.
Credit: Mark Chew/Visit Victoria The report evaluated the overall wellbeing of each local government area across Australia by assessing its economy; income and wealth; employment, knowledge and skills; housing; health; equality, community and work-life balance; and environment. “These areas of regional Victoria perform reasonably well on overall wellbeing,” SGS Economics and Planning senior associate Michelle Tjondro said. “But what I can see as well is that these areas tended to perform less well on the housing dimension,” she said.
The report’s housing indicator considered the area’s rental affordability and its rates of homelessness and overcrowding, not home values, which were considered in the income and wealth indicator. The four most expensive areas to buy a house in regional Victoria on Domain data for the March quarter were also in the top five for wellbeing. They included the Surf Coast, which had a median of $1,315.
