🟠 Warrandyte's housing boom

WHAT’S COMING UP 🎟️

• THURSDAY 09/07/26, 10-11AM | Kuranga Native Nursery’s Bush Buddies program

• FRIDAY 17/07/26, 7-9PM | Monash Musique

• SATURDAY 18/07/26 AND SUNDAY 19/07/26, 9AM-5PM | Melbourne Comic and Toy Fair

• EVERY DAY TO SUNDAY 26/06/26 | Immerse

• EVERY DAY TO SUNDAY 12/07/26, 10AM-5PM | Play School: Come and Play!

📰 THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES

🏡 Warrandyte’s entry price to housing hits $940,000. 10 years ago, the cheapest house sold for $610,000

The cheapest house currently for sale in Warrandyte is listed at $940,000, with a wave of luxury properties and a narrowing housing supply pushing the suburb's entry-level price toward seven figures.

Twenty-four kilometres north west of the Melbourne CBD, Warrandyte is secluded from city views and surrounded by the Mullum Mullum Creek and Warrandyte State Park.

With a population of around 5,500, the small community has a reputation for attracting artists, families with older children and eco-conscious professionals looking for a place on the border of Melbourne’s metro and regional areas.

Modelling from economic research company Informed Decisions (ID) projects an increase of only two new dwellings per year until 2046, due to planning controls, environmental protections and a Bushfire Overlay preventing housing growth.

At the moment, the cheapest house for sale is at 56 Yarra Street – with three bedrooms and one bathroom across a 0.19-acre lot. It comes with a price guide of $880,000 to $940,000.

The next two cheapest properties are over $1 million. The current median price is $1.5 million.

For a three-bedroom house in Warrandyte, the median price is $1.21 million. This bumps up to $1.3 million for four bedrooms or $1.94 million for five bedrooms.

Ten years ago, the median price was $900,000.

Jellis Craig Doncaster director Chris Savvides said owners often held onto houses for longer in the suburb than other regions with higher turnover and a higher vacancy rate.

“People come here for the lifestyle,” Savvides told the Eastern Melburnian. “People that buy in Warrandyte generally stay until their kids grow up and move out of home. It’s an area where there’s not a lot of chopping and changing.”

Featuring four bedrooms, five bathrooms and space for seven cars to park, a property at 100-110 Husseys Lane on the market for $5 million to $5.5 million represents just how luxurious some parts of the area have become.

Built on a five-acre estate, the property at 100-110 Husseys Lane has been on the market for the past 28 days and was last sold in November 2004 for $705,000.

Highlighted features include a solar and gas-heated infinity swimming pool, an outdoor fireplace, equestrian facilities, an “ornamental dam” and an entry foyer.

❤️ EAST SIDE STORIES

🥖 22 years working in the dark: Inside The Basin’s family bakery

On weekends, The Basin Bakery co-owner Fiorella Catalano starts work as early as 4am.

Her husband, Mario, usually begins at 11pm and finishes around 8.30am – a routine he has followed through seven years as an employee and more than 22 years as director and head baker.

Opening at 6am every day, the bakery is rarely empty or quiet.

From the kitchen, roars of laughter and the clanging of baking trays. The air is filled with the smells of fresh coffee, bread, pies, quiches and cakes.

Mario and Fiorella took over the business in 2004, with Fiorella having no experience in running a business or baking full-time, departing a 13-year stint in retail.

“I felt at home straight away,” she told the Eastern Melburnian. “As long as you do the right thing by your customers, they'll give it back in return.”

In 2021, the couple expanded into the vacant fruit shop next door, turning the original bakery into a larger kitchen. A year later, they began serving coffee, sandwiches, rolls and ice cream.

There are 24 staff on the weekly roster who cook or serve. Fiorella said cakes were the most difficult and time-consuming items to bake, and that the most often injuries were burns, which she suffers about once a month.

Their 26-year-old daughter, Mikayla, has worked at the bakery since she was 15, but started helping out from the age of three.

She remembers sleeping on flour bags out the back when she was sick because her parents were too busy to take her home.

Despite the long hours, Fiorella said seeing regular customers and turning ingredients like flour and sugar into a "beautiful looking product” was “rewarding”.

“Every day is different here,” she said. “Food waits for no one.”

Retirement has come up in conversation around the dinner table, but is not on the immediate horizon.

“There's going to be a time when we do have to move on, but I could probably make coffee all day, every day, given the chance,” she said.