Town snapshot – Inverleigh - Surf Coast Times

THE size of Inverleigh is about 211.7sqkm and has three parks covering nearly 5.5 per cent of total area.

The population of Inverleigh in 2016 was 1,468 and by the 2021 Census the population was recorded at 1,746 showing a population growth of 20% in the area during that time.

Inverleigh is a rural township at the junction of the Barwon and Leigh Rivers 30 kilometers from Geelong.

Once considered a sleepy hollow, Inverleigh has become a vibrant younger community that thrives in this charming rural village so handy to everything.

Semi-rural country living within easy commute to Geelong, Melbourne, and the coast is a high priority for many home buyers, seeing the median house price for Inverleigh surge several hundred thousand in a short few years.

Values have now corrected slightly in line with overall market conditions, but Inverleigh’s popularity will see values in this trusted community perform better than its urban counterparts.

In 1843, William Lawson built an inn near a ford across the Barwon River and not only was the inn conveniently near a river crossing, the land thereabouts was also flood-prone, with the silt left by the waters ideal for farming.

Settlers had orchards and dairying and Lawson built a new hotel, named the Horseshoe Inn during 1851-53, and a township was proclaimed in 1853, leading to a bridge over the Barwon being built in 1855.

Inverleigh maintained a comparatively consistent population level during the years after World War II, with about a 30 per cent growth between 1971 and 1996.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in Inverleigh is 0-9 years with households in Inverleigh being primarily young couples with children and are likely to be repaying on average $1,950 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in Inverleigh work in a managers occupation.