Town by town snapshot: St Leonards

Town Profile: St Leonards

The size of St Leonards is approximately 28.5 square kilometres and it has five parks covering nearly seven per cent of total area.

The population of St Leonards in 2011 was 2,000 people and by the 2016 Census the population was 2,484 showing a population growth of 24.2 per cent in the area during that time.

There has been significant population growth since the last Census with many new families and retirees choosing to make St Leonards home.

St Leonards origins began when James Langdon took up his St Leonards pastoral station in the area in 1849, possibly taking the name from the town of that name in Sussex, England.

 

Langdon was a partner of George Cole, a Melbourne merchant and owner of Coles Wharf on the Yarra River.

Shortly after Langdon’s purchase Cole acquired land along the foreshore, both sides of the present-day St Leonards.

He is thought to have established a firewood trade from the Bellarine Peninsula to Melbourne and to have built the first houses at St Leonards.

A pier was functioning by 1862 and was used for the carriage of agricultural produce as well as for poultry, pigs and fish.

Along with several coastal towns on the Bellarine Peninsula, St Leonards became a camping and fishing resort.

St Leonards has grown steadily since the 1960s and has a foreshore reserve from Indented Head (to its north) to Lower Bluff wildlife reserve, interspersed with three camping areas.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in St Leonards is 60-69 years with households in St Leonards being primarily childless couples and are likely to be repaying $1,400 – $1,799 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in St Leonards work in a professional occupation.

In 2011, 70.9 per cent of the homes in St Leonards were owner-occupied compared with 71.6 per cent in 2016.

 

TIDBIT:

There have been 579 homes and 1,209 block of land exchanged in St Leonards over the past five years

 

Population: 2,484

Male: 49.6%

Female: 50.4%

Median age: 58

5 year population change: 24.2%

House median value: $729,000

Change in Median Price: (5yrs) is 55.7%

Median asking rent per week: $420

Average length of ownership: 11 years

Owner occupiers: 75%

Renters: 25%

 

House median sale price:

July 2021: $640,000July 2020: $552,500

July 2019: $563,750

July 2018: $511,000

July 2017: $440,000

 

House sales per annum:

Period ending July 2021: 167

Period ending July 2020: 82

 

Land median sale price:

July 2021: $250,000

July 2020: $229,000

 

Land sales per annum:

Period ending July 2021: 215

Period ending July 2020: 100