Wandana sell-out underscores the best of Geelong’s attributes

Villawood Properties’ premium Wandana project in the Ceres hills has officially sold out, the latest in a string of projects across Melbourne and regional Victoria, as the developer leads a surging market and Geelong’s all-time high property market.

Wandana highlighted to the broader market a luxury standard of property rarely attainable in metropolitan markets let alone a regional area within an hour of the city centre and a short drop-punt from Victoria’s best surf beaches – and at an eye-watering affordability.

The elevated 202-lot Wandana, boasting easily the best views in Geelong, fielded powerful demand right from the get-go when it launched late 2017, auctioning its first tranche of lots for an average $500K.

This was followed by multiple campers pitching tents on the slopes, staying for days in advance of the traditional sales launch and meeting their new neighbours in the process.

Wandana’s sell-out follows the similar sell-out of Villawood’s Sanctuary community at Armstrong, the pending final lots of its award-winning Aquarevo in Melbourne’s southeast and a fistful of projects in the rural Victoria.

At the same time, Villawood has launched multiple new projects – Estuary Mk2 at Leopold, flagships at Sunbury and Tarneit, boutique offerings such as Sherwood grange in Emu Bottom and other rural developments from Rockbank to Ararat to Moama. It is pursuing numerous major projects interstate as well as it expands its national horizons.

Like many of Villawood projects, Wandana resonates with the local psyche. The Brownhill Lookout adjoining Wandana’s Drewan Park playground has been a popular destination for more than a century.

Great War hero, historian, journalist and philanthropist Walter Randolph Brownhill founded the Panorama Heights Reserve and its first lookout in 1907. His name has been preserved in Wandana’s Brownhill Drive.

Wandana’s not been short on ready attributes for quality-conscious Geelong buyers and many of its purchasers, as locals, were familiar with the forever views across Geelong, Corio Bay, the You Yangs, Bellarine Peninsula, Surf Coast, and rural hinterland vistas.

Its large sloping blocks offered class design opportunities. Ready CBD, freeway and coastal access and amenity, full services and amenity, expansive open space, playground and state-of-the-art water management for runoff and stormwater drew buyers as well.

The challenging contours of Wandana saw Villawood deploy three water management systems: a Biofilta system treats provides aerobic and anaerobic treatment of stormwater, while a giant underground SPEL system mitigates mass flows and a deep retention basin provides an important biodiverse wetland.

Sales might be finished at Wandana but home building is continuing apace and Villawood continues also to enhance the project, with additions to its Drewan Park playground and the removal of overhead powerlines. The giant corten steel letters that posted a variety of social messages to Ring Road passers-by have been relocated to the Surf Coast Highway.

Critically, Wandana offered premium land/home opportunities for well below the prices being demanded by established home in neighbouring premium Highton.

Its affordability as a prime location has been simply unbeatable.

With Geelong’s property market presently firing on all cylinders – with land sales and building approvals at an all-time high, prices up almost 20 per cent in a year, demand continuing to surge and monthly sales the highest in regional Victoria – it’s a fair bet Wandana purchasers might feel they’re sitting right on top of the hill.