Victorian towns where you can buy a family home and pool for less than $1m

For a Melbourne dweller, a contemporary family home with a pool for less than $1 million may sound like a summer fantasy, but it is possible with a tree-change.

The pool-loving demographic is heavily weighted to busy families and empty-nesters eager to host grandchildren.

A Seymour home with a pool that sold for $900,000.Credit: Chwyla

Swimming pools, though, inspire buyer envy and loathing in equal measure, with regional agents citing fear of maintenance and cooler year-round climates on the negative side of the sales ledger.

Here are four desirable tree-change Victorian family homes purchased for less than $1 million over the past year.

Warragul, $935,000, sold in March 2025

About an hour-and-a-half east of Melbourne in Warragul, a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home with three living zones, a shed, side access and a landscaped saltwater pool sold for $935,000 in March.

@Realty’s Mel Ahearn said Warragul, a car ride away from the surf and swimming beaches of Phillip Island, has housing ranging from units to farms but side access and a shed consistently top buyers’ wish lists.

“Having a pool in your backyard is so much easier than trying to find time to get to the beach,” Ahearn said, adding pools appeal to busy families with multiple sporting commitments.

The 11 Lancashire Road house, built 2½ years ago, has indoor and outdoor entertainment areas, a 6.5m x 4m shed and a garage with insulated electric roller door, downlights and split system heating and cooling, potential for a home gym and a workshop on a 700-square-metre block.

The in-ground mineral pool has a solar-powered heat pump for year-round heating.

“The buyers, a couple in their 50s, bought it with family visitors in mind. The grandkids will use the pool as well.”

Seymour, $900,000, sold in September 2025

One of Victoria’s oldest inland settlements, Seymour is an hour-and-a-half north of Melbourne.

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Chwyla agent Troy Hodge said the town, with its eclectic mix of old and new, has a median house price in the mid-$400,000s, a psychological barrier for local purchasers of 10 Lightwood Avenue, which eventually sold to out-of-town buyers for $900,000 in September.

“The buyers wanted the metrics of pool, shed and the whole lifestyle thing on 1000 square metres,” Hodge said, adding that in Seymour and surrounds the most compelling motivation for a buyer is a shed. The lure of a swimming pool was a “50-50 thing”.

The three-bedroom, two-bathroom modern home with an entertainer’s kitchen has a double garage converted to an office, landscaped gardens, automated irrigation system, an 8.8-kilowatt solar system, a 6m x 9m shed with a 3m roller door and double gate rear yard access.

In this case, Hodge said, the swimming pool was part of the “lifestyle package” the buyers, a young family returning from overseas, were seeking.

Wesburn, $990,000, sold in July 2025

Billed as a private country escape, this four-bedroom, two-bathroom home on 5330 square metres in Wesburn, a short drive from Yarra Junction township, has an outdoor entertaining area including a small pool.

Although Wesburn is considered part of Greater Melbourne by the ABS, residents get the entire Yarra Valley experience: misty mornings, rolling hills, rivers and forests. It’s a postcard-perfect, cool-climate wine growing area with a creative community east of the city centre - an attractive locale with natural charms for residents and visitors, including hikers, cyclists, wine and food lovers.

However, swimming pools rarely make it onto a buyer’s wish list, Bell Real Estate Yarra Valley agent Michael Robinson said.

“The feature of that property is an acre and a quarter of land, the lifestyle, the size of the land, the environment, the proximity to facilities,” he said.

Hamilton, $980,000, sold in May 2025

When it came to the sale of the newly built four-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 8244 Hamilton Highway with north-facing living, a double garage and a workshop, a year-round heated, mineral pool was a “definite” value-add, Elders Real Estate Hamilton agent Jo Frost said.

“The buyers absolutely love the pool,” Frost said.

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“In Hamilton, we often don’t add the value of the pool because not everybody wants one.”

And that is partly because of the climate. South of the Grampians National Park, Hamilton, with its historic pastoral and transport museums, is proud of its heritage buildings and beautiful natural surrounds, including scenic waterfalls.

Despite dry and potentially pool-friendly summers, frosts occur at any time of year and winters are cold and wet.

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