Bells Beach is in Surf Coast LGA, VIC, postcode 3228, with population 151.
The page is still useful for local context, but the evidence stack is too thin for a clean one-page call. Use nearby stronger suburbs or compare mode before treating it as a serious shortlist decision.
Higher SEIFA context supports a stronger local-quality read.
The page is thin enough that nearby alternatives should be checked before shortlisting. Small local population makes the signal set more fragile.
Price series isn't recorded for this suburb. Census housing data is shown instead.
Official vacancy is published at the Regional Victoria level, not per suburb. Shaded band marks a balanced market (2.5–3.5%).
89% of homes here are owner-occupied and 9% rented, with 9% of landlords negatively geared.
89% owner-occupied — owner-occupiers hold longer and absorb rate shocks, supporting price stability.
ABS Census 2021 tenure (G37), ATO postcode rental statistics, and QuickProperty's investor-exposure index. Owner-occupied = owned outright + with a mortgage.
This suburb 22% · VIC median 17%
Nationally · lighter rent burden than 29% of AU suburbs
Owners with a mortgage repay a median of $2,600/mo, while renters pay about $2,513/mo — owning runs $87/mo higher on these medians.
At the median asking rent, about 29% of households here would spend more than 30% of income on rent (rent stress line: $1,933/wk income).
Getting to work: 77% drive, 0% public transport, 0% walk or cycle, 38% worked from home (2021 Census, taken during COVID-era work-from-home arrangements).
Building due diligence
The National Construction Code is the baseline. Local hazards and site classifications can change the required structure, materials, fixings, insulation and detailing.
About 100.0% of the suburb is within Victoria's mapped Bushfire Prone Area.
May affect: External construction · Roof and wall systems · Openings, screens and decks
About 0.0% of the suburb intersects VIC LSIO.
May affect: Floor levels and drainage · Water-resistant assemblies · Material durability
Confirm the NCC climate zone used for the building design and energy provisions.
May affect: Insulation and glazing · Condensation control · Roof-space ventilation
A suburb layer cannot determine the site wind classification or Bushfire Attack Level.
May affect: Structure and tie-downs · Cladding and fixings · Openings and bushfire detailing
Confirm marine or corrosive exposure and the applicable termite-management requirements.
May affect: Fasteners and connectors · Roofing and coatings · Termite management
This screen identifies investigation triggers, not building quality or property compliance. Confirm the address, design and current jurisdiction rules with the council, building surveyor or certifier, designer and engineer.
NCC 2022 Housing Provisions: how to use · NCC 2022 Volume Two and Housing Provisions
Share of the suburb within Victoria's gazetted Bushfire Prone Area (Vicmap, CC BY), point-sampled across the suburb. A Bushfire Prone Area is a planning designation that triggers the building code's bushfire construction provisions — it is not a graduated hazard rating or a property-level Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) assessment. Obtain a BAL assessment (AS 3959) for an individual property.
Estimated exposure to the official flood-hazard layer (VIC LSIO), point-sampled across the suburb. This shows how much of the suburb sits within mapped flood-planning areas — it is not a property-level flood certificate. Areas without a completed flood study may be unmapped. Check the local council's flood maps for an individual property.
Estimated short-let income is 0.5× the $30,160/yr a long-term let would earn at the median rent — before management fees, cleaning, vacancy beyond the occupancy model, and short-stay regulation.
Active Airbnb listings point-mapped to this suburb from Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0). Occupancy and revenue are estimates from Inside Airbnb's San Francisco model (review-rate proxy, minimum-stay assumption, occupancy capped at 70%) — they are gross, indicative, and not a guarantee of returns. Short-stay letting is subject to state and local regulation.
Land-use mix estimated by point-sampling the suburb against Vicmap Planning scheme-zone polygons (CC BY 4.0). This is a suburb-level snapshot of planning zones, not a parcel-level zoning certificate or development advice. Check the relevant planning scheme for an individual property.
LGA-level official projection (Victoria in Future 2023, DTP). Indicative of the wider council area, not a suburb-level forecast.
ABS population projection (2022 base) for the Torquay SA2 statistical area — the finest official projection grain available; suburb-level projections do not exist.
Bells Beach (postcode 3228) is a quiet locality in Victoria within the Surf Coast local government area. The area has roughly 151 residents and a mature demographic, with a median age of 48. Households earn a median income of $135K per year, with an average household size of 2.9 people. Recent annual estimates show population movement staying broadly stable across the broader catchment, with population growth running at +1.1% year-on-year at the LGA level. VIC employment has moved +0.8% year-on-year in the official ABS Labour Force trend series, which provides the broader jobs backdrop for this suburb. VIC also had 41 Commonwealth-backed major projects under construction, 18 underway, and 24 in planning as at 2025-09-01, which is useful as a broader delivery backdrop rather than a suburb-specific project count. The most common occupations are professionals, managers, technicians & trades. Employment in the area leans toward professional services and retail trade. The top ancestries reported are Australian, English, Irish.
The current median weekly rent is $580. The median monthly mortgage repayment is $2,600.
The crime rate in the Surf Coast LGA is below average at 3,099 incidents per 100,000 population.
On the investment side, Population growth of +1.1% year-on-year points to stable demand fundamentals. Building approvals have changed +0% year-on-year, indicating steady development activity.
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Open rankings to save the first candidates.
Bells Beach is usable as a read, though it still needs cross-checking.
QuickProperty mixes release files, Census baselines, and matched local services on this page. Read the status panel before treating every metric as equally fresh.
DataVic-discovered annual suburb price workbooks parsed into suburb prices. Quarterly VIC resources are discovered and cached, but not yet used as current-price anchors.
Use current rent as a starting signal, not as a fixed underwriting truth.
Schools, transport, and hospitals are useful as presence signals, but they still have different source cadences.
This page stays indexable because Bells Beach is a real locality with enough context to be directionally useful. The tradeoff is that coverage is lighter than a stronger suburb profile, so the read should stay cautious.
Small-population localities can still be worth checking, but rankings, comparisons, and broad suburb assumptions become noisier faster.
The main gaps on this page are school matches, hospital coverage, and transport stops. That narrows how much confidence you should place on a single-page read.
Use it for context first, then move to compare, the state hub, or a larger nearby suburb before calling it a full market decision.
This page remains visible, but it should be read as a locality brief rather than a full-confidence suburb profile.
Read it as a direction-setter rather than a final answer: frame the locality, then verify with compare, stronger nearby suburbs, and the state hub.
If Bells Beach feels too thin on its own, use these nearby suburbs as stronger local reads before making a shortlist decision.
pop same · rent -$184/wk
Similar local read: useful for context, but still compare the actual market signals.
pop same · rent -$280/wk
Similar local read: useful for context, but still compare the actual market signals.
Bells Beach is in the Surf Coast Local Government Area, VIC, postcode 3228. Council-level context for Surf Coast LGA (suburb mix, population, rent, and price coverage) is available on the QuickProperty LGA page.
The median weekly rent in Bells Beach is $580/wk, based on the current market rent dataset. The current rent signal is rent context available.
Rent context available: Bells Beach has usable rent context. Use this as a suburb screening signal before comparing candidates or modelling a purchase; the matching rent ranking can provide broader market context.
QuickProperty's investment signals for Bells Beach show: Stable, Steady. These are computed from price, rent, income, and population data — not an opaque score.
Property prices come from state Valuers General offices and ABS Data by Region. Demographics are from ABS Census 2021. School ICSEA scores are from ACARA. Crime statistics are from state police agencies. Transport data is sourced from GTFS feeds.
Property prices update quarterly. RBA macro indicators update with each deploy. Demographics are from Census 2021. School ICSEA scores are from ACARA 2025.