2656 Off the Plan & New Apartments for Sale in Victoria (VIC)

Looking to buy off the plan apartments in Victoria?

Know this:

• This page displays every new apartment project in Victoria.  New apartments for sale in Melbourne’s CBD can be viewed here. Also, here’s Southbank and Docklands.
• If you’d like to refine your search, you can use the fields provided at the top of this page.
• You can search by Suburb name, project name as well as filter how many bedrooms you require.
• Need a car park? A second bathroom? We have filters for that as well.
• Looking for land or house and land packages in Victoria? You can find them here.

First, a little about Victoria

Victoria is the second largest state in Australia.  The state capital is Melbourne and the city is the major driver of population growth within the state.

Increasingly regional cities and Melbourne’s middle ring of suburbs are seeing several off the plan apartment buying opportunities with new property developments catering for a wide range of budgets and lifestyles.

Central Melbourne has some of the most intense apartment development anywhere in Australia and several Victorian Government transport infrastructure initiatives will see more development opportunities in traditional middle ring suburbs like Monash/Mulgrave, Clayton, Box Hill, Doncaster, Glen Waverley, Heidelberg, Bundoora, Cheltenham and Broadmeadows over the longer term.

Regional centres are progressively developing off the plan properties with new apartments and townhouses being developed at varying scales in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo.  

Geelong in particular has several projects that have recently seen construction completed and its relatively short travel distance to Melbourne will ensure the discerning home buyer will have multiple affordable off the plan property purchasing opportunities in the years to come.

Buying off the plan for new first home buyers is very common in Victoria with many opting for new apartments in a variety of development sizes.

Buying off the plan property attracts land transfer duty (also known as stamp duty) savings in Victoria and depending on your circumstances, other government home ownership initiatives may be available to you as well.  

Land transfer duty / stamp duty is based on the contract price of the property you intend to buy and certain concessions are available for first home buyers. 

Before purchasing your new property, it is recommended you consult the information available on the State Revenue Office (SRO) website or seek advice from a qualified professional such as a conveyancer or real estate agent.  

Buying apartments off the plan Melbourne

Central Melbourne offers an incredible range of choices to buy off the plan property, specifically in apartment projects that might range from 10 units in a block up to 1000.

Buying an apartment off the plan in the City of Melbourne Local Government Area, the are which covers the original European settlement, Southbank, Docklands, Carlton and much of Fishermans Bend can also give the buyer a specific stamp duty concession.  

According to the State Revenue Office (SRO), a 50% concession is available for new residential properties with a dutiable value up to $1 million and a full exception is available for new residential properties that have remained unsold for 12 months or more since the completion of construction.  Consult the SRO’s website for more information.

Central Melbourne also hosts many of Melbourne’s marquee residential skyscrapers.  Southbank in particular has hosted Melbourne’s tallest building since Eureka Tower was completed.  With Australia 108 now the tallest building, that title will shift to Southbank by Beulah once it’s 360+ metre eastern tower is completed later on this decade.

While Central Melbourne steals a lot of the thunder in terms of media focus on new residential development, the inner and middle ring suburbs have a plethora of smaller-scale off the plan buying opportunities.

Planning reform in the early 2010s saw the introduction of new planning zones allowing apartment buildings to be built up to 4 or 5 storeys in many suburbs that have established property.  

There have been and there still are hundreds of opportunities to buy off the plan in these established areas. These suburbs include Brunswick, Box Hill, Moonee Ponds, Footscray, Carnegie, South Yarra, Richmond and Heidelberg.

Recent State Government policy shifts, and in an effort to supercharge employment coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, new transport infrastructure projects are more frequently being paired with planning reform to allow for more intensive development around new public transport nodes.  

A project that personifies this shift is the Suburban Rail Loop and discerning buyers would be wise to monitor new buying opportunities near the new stations that will be built over the coming decade.

Planning for Victoria

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Victoria led Australia’s population growth and the overwhelming majority of it occurred in Melbourne.  Putting new transport infrastructure aside for a moment, there is an enormous pipeline of public school building work as well as new hospital and broad-based expansion of health services to serve the growing community.

Many of these projects are designed to serve existing suburbs where land packages have been popular but they also benefit areas where there is new higher-density development in established areas.

On the transport front, the Victorian Government has an enormous pipeline of work underway and in planning.  

Of the big-ticket items, the West Gate Tunnel is scheduled to open in 2024/2025, the Metro Tunnel (2024/2025), North East Link (2028), Melbourne Airport Rail Link (2029) and the first stage of the Suburban Rail Loop (2030s).

There are a myriad of other smaller-scale projects under or in the pipeline including vast swathes of arterial road upgrades, bus reform, large-scale fleet renewal on Melbourne’s famed tram network and many others.

One highly localised and ongoing project is the Level Crossing Removal programme.  It started with a list of 50 level crossings to be removed in 8 years and has thus far expanded to include a list of 85.  More than half of them have already been delivered, benefiting home buyers who leverage off the large-scale public investment.

Of all the projects in the pipeline, Melbourne Airport Rail Link is one of the most welcome and the Suburban Rail Loop will have the biggest transformative effect.  

Melbourne Airport at Tullamarine pre-pandemic was one of the largest airports around the world without a fixed rail link and that’s changing with the Victorian Government kicking off a project that will see investment in the Melbourne Metro tunnel be leveraged and expanded to include an airport branch.

Passengers in Melbourne’s south-east - on the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines - will see one-seat journeys to the airport and the new line will connect with all other railway lines at Flinders Street (Town Hall), Melbourne Central (State Library), Footscray or Sunshine.  

The mooted journey time to the city from the airport is just under 30 minutes which will be competitive with private vehicles and the often clogged Tullamarine Freeway.

The Suburban Rail Loop is an independent railway that is designed to link all existing train lines (except for Sandringham) through Melbourne’s middle ring.  It will be delivered in three stages: 1. Cheltenham to Box Hill.  2. Box Hill to Reservoir. 3. Reservoir to Melbourne Airport.

Each station will see its own precinct/structure plan developed so land-use can change within a framework that drives investment in either employment, retail or residential spaces at core suburban nodes.  The services will also make cross-town journeys that don’t involve the inner-city far easier for millions of Melburnian residents.

Discerning first home buyers and investors who are planning to go ahead with buying off the plan in Melbourne would do well to keep an eye on the middle ring of Melbourne as the Suburban Rail Loop project is built over the next decade.

How to buy off the plan in Victoria

Buying an apartment is a highly individualised process, however, there are some key milestones that we can outline.  

Interested buyers will often need to first pay a refundable fee (generally $1000) to reserve a specific unit and again, generally speaking, that reservation will be active until such time as a contract for purchase is signed.  

If the buyer elects not to proceed, the reservation fee will be refunded.  

If the buyer elects to proceed with the purchase, broadly speaking, a contract will need to be signed and a 10% deposit (minus the reservation fee already paid) will need to be paid.

Contract signing and taking all the deposits is a key milestone for the developer as, broadly speaking, they will