Out of town buyers are buying Ballarat properties unseen as metropolitan investors and ideal market conditions drive interest in the city.

One such property in Ballarat North at the weekend had out-of-town buyers making phone offers on the weekend for the property without even stepping foot on the site, the Ballarat Courier reports.

A line formed from the property’s door and into the street during its open house on Saturday, with a total of 55 groups of people who inspected the property.

The interest from out of town buyers is not a new trend in Ballarat, but one that has grown over the last few months, and is likely to continue to grow over time.

Ballarat real estate agents are experiencing the biggest market of Melbourne buyers that they have had for a long time.

Allister Morrison, from Ballarat Real Estate, says the weekend’s events for the open house were highly unusual, but seem to be becoming more common within the Ballarat area.

The number of buyers seem to be increasing while the number of available properties continue to decrease.

The motivation for Melbourne buyers to seek properties within regional areas, like Ballarat, comes down to the significant difference in the average house price between the two areas.

The current median price for a house in Melbourne is $815,000.

In 2017, Melbourne house prices grew by 13.2%, and was the highest annual price growth for houses since 2010.

Housing in Ballarat comes in at around half the price of Melbourne, with a median house price of $414,000.

With this major saving in mind, and Melbourne’s CBD being only an hour and 15 minutes away, Morrison says its a ‘no-brainer’ that out of town buyers are seeking homes and investments in Ballarat.

At almost half the metropolitan price, buyers are able to secure a home, or guarantee a great return on an investment property.

The booming of the Ballarat housing market, through out of town buyers, had led to more pressure on local buyers to act quickly, and the demand for properties has contributed to the 4% increase in Ballarat house prices over the last quarter on 2017.

Housing prices grew from 400,000 to 425,000 during this time.

Reports indicate that Ballarat will become one of the top growing suburbs in 2018, says Morrison, and its predicted that ‘regional areas will outperform metropolitan areas’ in 2018.

The Courier