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Virtual Buyers Agent(TM) · Melbourne, Victoria
Australia's second-largest city, spread across one of the largest metropolitan footprints in the world. This page will not tell you what Melbourne is worth — it sets out the VIC land transfer duty, the local context, and what you have to confirm before you offer.
It does not publish a Melbourne median price, a rental yield, a vacancy rate or a growth figure. Virtual Buyers Agent has no source it can cite for any of them, and a number we cannot source is a number we do not print — not softened, not hedged, not moved into an FAQ.
It does not tell you which suburb to buy in, whether now is a good time, or what a property is worth. Virtual Buyers Agent holds no AFSL and no real estate licence, and every one of those is advice.
What it does is state the Victorian land transfer duty rates that apply, name the registries that publish Melbourne property data so you can read the real figures yourself, and list what is worth confirming before you sign anything.
General information only — not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Virtual Buyers Agent does not hold an AFSL or a real estate licence. Check your circumstances with appropriately licensed professionals before acting.
Victoria charges land transfer duty on property purchases. First home buyers may be eligible for a duty exemption on properties valued up to $600,000 or a concession up to $750,000.
| Purchase price | Duty |
|---|---|
| $0 - $25,000 | 1.4% of the dutiable value |
| $25,001 - $130,000 | $350 + 2.4% over $25,000 |
| $130,001 - $960,000 | $2,870 + 6.0% over $130,000 |
| $960,001 - $2,000,000 | Flat rate of 5.5% of total value |
| Over $2,000,000 | $110,000 + 6.5% over $2,000,000 |
An additional 8% foreign purchaser surcharge applies. Victoria also imposes an annual windfall gains tax on rezoned land.
General information only — not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Virtual Buyers Agent does not hold an AFSL or a real estate licence. Check your circumstances with appropriately licensed professionals before acting.
These are the standard investment rates. No first home buyer, owner-occupier or off-the-plan concession is applied here — eligibility turns on facts this page cannot establish.
Things worth having an answer to before you sign. A list of questions, not a list of answers — the answers depend on your contract and on the people advising you.
What the section 32 vendor statement contains in full — the title, the planning and rates information, and any notices affecting the land.
The cooling-off period that applies to your contract, and what it costs to use it.
What the owners corporation certificate and the maintenance fund show, if it is a strata property.
When land transfer duty falls due, who lodges it, and whether the foreign purchaser surcharge applies to you.
Whether the land is subject to the windfall gains tax following a rezoning.
What is there and what is being built. Descriptive and checkable — no forecast, and no view on what any of it does to a price.
Melbourne is Australia's second-largest city. What this page gives you is the land transfer duty you will actually pay, the areas people ask about, and the checks that decide whether a specific address is right.
Melbourne's western corridor carries much of the state's current infrastructure programme. Suburbs from Footscray through to Werribee sit near the Suburban Rail Loop, the Metro Tunnel and the Melbourne Airport Rail Link. The state government's 20-minute neighbourhoods policy is also directing development toward new activity centres in the outer suburbs. Each of those changes travel times and employment patterns for the areas it touches; whether that is already reflected in a particular asking price is a question about that property, not about the city.
A list of places, not a shortlist. There is no price, no yield and no ranking here, and nothing on this page suggests one suburb over another.
Footscray
Inner-west suburb about 5km from the CBD, on the Werribee, Williamstown and Sunbury rail lines.
Sunshine
On the alignment of the Suburban Rail Loop and the Melbourne Airport Rail Link. Designated as a National Employment and Innovation Cluster.
Dandenong
South-east manufacturing and logistics centre, with an urban renewal project underway in the town centre.
Frankston
Bayside centre at the end of the Frankston rail line, with a waterfront precinct upgrade completed.
Werribee
Outer-west centre with new town centres, schools and transport connections.
Craigieburn
Northern corridor suburb with new shopping centres and proximity to Melbourne Airport employment.
The bodies that publish it. Go to them for a figure rather than to us — we have no source we could cite for a market number, so we do not print one.
State Revenue Office Victoria
The land transfer duty rates that apply to your purchase, land tax and the windfall gains tax.
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Census counts, dwelling approvals and residential property price indexes, by capital city.
VicPlan
Zoning, planning overlays and planning scheme controls for a given address.
DataVic
Victorian government open data, including the state's property and land datasets.
Named, checkable facts — not a case for buying here.
A large infrastructure programme under construction: the Suburban Rail Loop, the Metro Tunnel, the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, and the level crossing removal project across the suburban network.
A highly diversified economy spanning finance, health, education, technology and advanced manufacturing, rather than a single dominant sector.
A large international student population, with major university campuses in the CBD, Parkville, Clayton, Bundoora and Burwood.
Everything a Victorian buyer needs to verify is published by a body you can name: the State Revenue Office Victoria for land transfer duty and surcharges, Land Use Victoria for title, and your local council for planning.
Once you have a specific property
The duty and the registries on this page change by state. The order of the work does not.
The properties you are actually weighing up, in one place, with the listing, the notes and the numbers attached to them.
The same named checks open on every one — the rates, the levy, the documents, the settlement costs.
What you saw, recorded against the property while you still remember it, rather than left in a photo roll.
What is still needed, visible, so the decision is made with the gaps in front of you.
What a search actually does to you
Nothing on this page is specific to where you are buying except the rates. The problem is the same everywhere; the numbers are not.
What gets lostWhat the workspace does
What gets lost
What the workspace does
Three properties in, the strata levy on the first one is a number you half remember from a PDF you closed a fortnight ago.
Financials
You checked what was near the place once, on your phone, in the car outside the inspection, and you are no longer certain which property that was.
Location
You asked an agent for the contract of sale on Tuesday. You are no longer certain which property that was.
Documents
Duty, legals, inspections and the deposit were four separate sums, worked out at four separate moments, across two different properties.
Offer
Virtual Buyers Agent does not publish market comparisons between cities, and we do not forecast which capital will outperform. Doing either would mean asserting figures we cannot source and date, and predicting a market we have no licence to predict. What we can do is take a specific property in either city and keep its recorded price, modelled cash flow, upfront costs and outstanding checks side by side, using the same framework and with supported calculations showing their assumptions.
We do not publish suburb yield figures. A yield we cannot source and date is a number you would be relying on without knowing where it came from, so we removed them rather than estimate. For a property you are actually looking at, the Rental Yield and Cash Flow Forecast tools work the yield out from the price and rent you enter and show the arithmetic. For suburb-level market data, use a source you can name — the ABS, the Victorian Valuer-General, or recent sale prices your own agent can evidence.
For a $950,000 investment property in Victoria, the land transfer duty works out at $52,070 using the brackets above. There are no concessions for investment properties, and a foreign purchaser surcharge applies on top. Virtual Buyers Agent's Stamp Duty Calculator estimates the amount for any purchase price including applicable surcharges — and the State Revenue Office Victoria calculator is the authority to check it against.
The same things you would check anywhere, plus a few that matter more in a corridor being built out. Read the section 32 vendor statement in full. Check the planning scheme and any development approvals on neighbouring land, because a corridor with a lot of new estates can add supply quickly. Confirm what infrastructure is funded and under construction rather than announced. Virtual Buyers Agent keeps those checks and the numbers together so nothing material is missed before you commit.
Once you have a specific property
Bring the properties you are weighing up into one place. The listing, your numbers, the documents and the next thing worth checking stay attached to the property they belong to.
General information only — not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Virtual Buyers Agent does not hold an AFSL or a real estate licence. Check your circumstances with appropriately licensed professionals before acting.
This page publishes no Melbourne price, yield or growth figure, and nothing on it is a recommendation about a suburb, a property or a time to buy.