MANSFIELD Shire is one of a string of Victorian regional areas in which house prices have more than doubled over the past decade, with lifestyle and work-life balance proving the main drivers according to online real estate marketplace, Domain.

The biggest recorded increases over the 10 years to June 2024 was in Alpine Shire (up 171.8 per cent) while Mansfield Shire sat at 107.4 per cent, despite an aproximate 10 per cent drop in the past 12 months, with the median house price in Mansfield at $663,750 up from $320,000 in June 2014.

While the pandemic saw an exodus of Melburnians figuratively, in some cases literally, heading for the hills, some LGAs have recorded larger price increases than others.

A key reason behind this, Domain chief of research and economics Dr Nicola Powell said, is the strong pull of lifestyle locations.

“What you’ve got in those key areas that are seeing strong rates of growth are really those sea-change and tree-change locations with a lifestyle pull that is really attracting buyers to that location,” she said.

“People are still in hybrid ways of working, which in the heart of the pandemic opened up where people could reside, casting the net out to the regions.”

Regional Australia Institute (RAI) CEO Liz Ritchie said that this internal state migration has become a sustained population trend.

Her research shows that in the year to June, a third of all city dwellers who made a tree-change in Australia chose to move to regional Victoria.

“Further, capital city housing prices have reached levels that make them simply unaffordable for so many people," Ms Ritchie said.

"Whilst many regional communities have also seen prices increase, overall, they remain more affordable than Australia’s capitals,”

It is expected that Mansfield Shire’s population will increase by 50 per cent over the next 20 years, from 10,540 to 16,144 people.