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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Ros Hill\u2019s suburb is in Melbourne, but living there feels like living in the country.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a national park nearby, and she has enough room for animals at home. Neighbours drop in and help. Yet, it\u2019s still close to anything you need.<\/p>\n Hill lives in Belgrave South, and it seems she\u2019s not the only one who loves it there. The outer-east pocket ranks among Melbourne\u2019s top three most tightly held suburbs. Home owners hold on to their properties for a median 26.9 years before they sell.<\/p>\n Belgrave South is only outranked by Clarinda, in the south-east, at 30.7 years, and Kilsyth South, also in the outer east, at 27.1 years, in figures from property research house Cotality over the 12 months to June.<\/p>\n Greater Melbourne\u2019s overall median hold period is 10 years. In a handful of largely middle to outer suburban family-friendly neighbourhoods, owners stay for 20 years or more.<\/p>\n Hill\u2019s home of 39 years is a two-hectare block chosen because it had enough space for her husband\u2019s earthmoving equipment. The 73-year-old retiree\u2019s children are no longer at home. She is now ready to give up that much space and sell, hoping it will suit another family buyer.<\/p>\n The large block wasn\u2019t only useful for trucks. Her husband and daughter rode horses there and her son rode motorbikes. Hill has appreciated living in a suburb with a national park nearby and plenty of room for its residents.<\/p>\n \u201cI love it,\u201d she said. \u201cI love the smell of it, I love the openness, the neighbours \u2026 it\u2019s close to everything. It\u2019s still metropolitan but at the same time it\u2019s country.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill likes knowing her neighbours and the community feel of her area.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople help each other and people look out for each other,\u201d she said, recalling someone calling in with buns, and another mowing the lawn.<\/p>\n Cotality head of research Gerard Burg said many of Melbourne\u2019s tightly held suburbs were in the east. Most of them are priced higher than the median Melbourne house, although there are few at top-tier premium price points and few in the inner suburbs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re in a location and the hold period is lasting that long and there\u2019s barely any sales, it really points to somewhere that offers people a lifestyle they want to stick around for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re going to be holding for those sorts of extended periods of time, you\u2019re probably purchasing at a reasonably young age with a view to a family situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article Some buyers, he added, might have chosen a suburb for its local school or other amenities and then sent their children to that school throughout their education, which can result in longer hold times.<\/p>\n He thought it would be harder for first home buyers now to own a home for as long as in the tightly held suburbs because it takes longer to save a deposit than in the past, which means some first-time buyers are older.<\/p>\n In Clarinda, for example, the typical owner bought their home in 1995, based on the hold periods data. \u201cIt was definitely a different world around 1995 in terms of things like the household income-to-value ratio was much lower,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Long-tenured owners tend to have a better chance of capital growth. But any area they might consider relocating to had probably had capital growth as well, meaning the cost of relocating \u2013 plus stamp duty \u2013 could discourage downsizing, he said.<\/p>\n Hill\u2019s agent, Oberoi Homes director\/owner Akshay Chawla, said Belgrave South was a popular location for buyers, especially families and upsizers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the scenery, because of the views, and it is up in the mountains,\u201d he said. He also thought the local schools and the Puffing Billy Railway were drawcards.<\/p>\n He said the market was slower now, but more so in other areas. Belgrave South\u2019s median house value is $1.08 million on Cotality data.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have had a lot of buyers through the property [offered by Hill] since we have been running the campaign,\u201d he said. \u201cOther areas are definitely quieter than Belgrave South.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Clarinda took the crown of Melbourne\u2019s most tightly held suburb. Buxton Oakleigh senior sales consultant Dario Casale has lived in Clarinda all his life and recently sold a home there. Because the volume of sales in the area is small, it\u2019s not a suburb where he sells many properties.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a fantastic community,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has always been young families \u2026 but people grow up, and move out.\u201d<\/p>\n He thought the suburb offered buyers good value, compared with nearby Clayton and Oakleigh. Clarinda\u2019s median house value is $1.01 million, and he said many blocks were about 600 or 700 square metres.<\/p>\n \u201cYou still get a yard and the family dream \u2026 you get a lot more bang for your buck.\u201d<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Ros](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/06584f8324d56e0c4961e6b6a7b71c37a96c2b56.jpeg\")
Ros Hill has lived in her home in Belgrave South for almost four decades.Eddie Jim<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784294053_343_471d9dd0decebc372dba2736ab2fdc5f570b0809.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/7b851c417d189a0af91b8e82d460bae6c0e27460.png\")
Elizabeth Redman<\/a> is the national property editor at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-807186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}