Queens Park or Highton: Can a suburb’s name raise home prices

The Queens Park pocket of Highton offers plenty of river view and valley vantages.

Changing the name of a suburb can make the locals feel good about where they live, but can it change property prices?

The perennial question to rename a part of Highton to Queens Park to reflect its widely-recognised locality has bubbled up again when Geelong councillors Eddy and Stretch Kontelj co-signed a letter to Victorian planning minister Sonya Kilkenny requesting her support for Geelong council to commence public consultation on the locally-popular proposal.

It’s not the first suburb to change, with Whittington name dropped south of Townsend Rd in favour of St Albans Park as residential development progressed in the 1990s, Collendina disappearing at Ocean Grove, Newtown swallowing up working class Chilwell, and Rippleside expanded the end a bayside anomaly for North Geelong.

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Geelong buyers advocate Tony Slack said changing the name to Queens Park would result in higher house prices, but it won’t happen overnight.
“It makes them a little bit more exclusive,” Mr Slack said.

“I couldn’t see it happening overnight but in the short to medium term perhaps.

Mr Slack, who was a real estate agent for 36 years, said people sought homes in that pocket for the riverside position and quality of the houses.

“Before realestate.com.au, we would be advertising in the Geelong Advertiser and would be referring to Highton/Queens Park – we always wanted to differentiate that part of Highton.”

Highton’s median house price of $875,000 is among the 10 most expensive in Geelong, according to PropTrack.

Geelong councillor Eddy Kontelj is leading the charge to have this part of Highton reclassified as Queens Park. Image: Supplied.

But analysis of Cotality sales data for houses shows higher property values in the Queens Park pocket, with a $1.1m median house price.

Queens Park stretches from the single-lane Queens Park Bridge connecting Newtown to the Montpellier Service Basins straddling Scenic Rd.

Prices have held up better in Queens Park, with a 3.6 per cent rise over 12 months, compared to an overall 4.8 per cent decline across Highton.

This palatial home at 11 Willowfield Court, Highton, sold for $5.5m, setting a new suburb record.

Though capital growth is level pegging at 25 per cent over five years, a $222,000 gain was recorded since 2020 in the Queens Park pocket, compared to $175,000 across the entire suburb.

Barry Plant Geelong agent Kieron Hunter said changing the name would underline the exclusivity of the area, which has about 600 homes.

“It’s a little bit in some ways like Manifold Heights. Obviously, a really small pocket, probably one of the smaller suburbs for mine and it gets that exclusivity.”

Manifold Heights has recently topped the city’s house prices, reaching $1.23m to overtake Newtown at $1.1m.

Whitford agent Heidi Trempel said it was the reverse when Chilwell was renamed Newtown to shake off the working class heritage.

This home at the river end of Pakington St, Newtown home sold for $995,000 in 2024.

This Bay St, Rippleside home sold for $1.57m in 2024.

Chilwell’s old workers’ cottages sat at the bottom of the hill, while the expensive homes were at the top in Newtown.

“The gap is closing because anywhere where there’s cafes and development, like from a cafe shopping strip, that’s really good for that little pocket,” Ms Trempel said.

“The younger ones, who potentially come from outside of Geelong, love the Chilwell zone.”

And five bayside streets of North Geelong also increased in buyers’ estimation, Ms Trempel said, when the area, widely known locally as St Helens but lined with many timber workers cottages, was renamed Rippleside.

“I grew up knowing it as North Geelong and St Helens and all of the sudden it turned into Rippleside and everyone from Melbourne thought, ‘oh, Rippleside’,” she said.

“There’s a real mixture of properties in that little pocket and I do think Rippleside gives it that bayside feel and that’s why people who want to be bayside love that Rippleside name.”

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