Does Buying Near a Stadium Actually Pay? Melbourne's Event Precinct

Every time Melbourne hosts something enormous — the Eras Tour, the Australian Open, the Grand Prix — I get asked the same question. Should I buy near the stadium?

The honest answer is that event demand is one of the weakest reasons to choose a Melbourne property, and the things that make those locations genuinely good have nothing to do with the events.

What an event actually does to a property

A concert fills the city for three nights. The Australian Open runs a fortnight. The Grand Prix, a weekend. Add them all up and you have perhaps six weeks a year of extraordinary demand — and 46 weeks where the location has to stand on its own.

Event demand is also short-stay demand, which for an overseas owner in Victoria now runs into two hard obstacles: a 7.5% short stay levy on bookings under 28 nights, and — since 1 January 2025 — the power of an owners corporation to ban short stays entirely by 75% vote. The only exemption is for the owner's principal place of residence, which your Melbourne apartment will never be.

So the strategy that would monetise event demand is precisely the one your building can vote out from under you.

Where the MCG actually is

Worth being accurate, because a lot of marketing is not. The MCG sits in Yarra Park, between East Melbourne and Richmond. Jolimont station is at the ground; Richmond station serves it on event days.

Southbank — where most new apartment stock aimed at overseas buyers is built — is roughly two kilometres away across the river. That is a pleasant twenty-minute walk, not a stadium-adjacent address. Anyone describing a Southbank tower as "at the MCG" is stretching it, and anyone placing a project in Southbank that is actually in a suburb fifteen kilometres out is not worth listening to.

What makes those areas good, properly

East Melbourne and Richmond are genuinely strong locations. Not for the football.

• Transport. Richmond is one of the best-connected stations in the network, and that is what a tenant uses every single day
• Employment. Walking distance to the CBD and the East Melbourne medical precinct — hospitals employ tens of thousands of shift workers who want to live close
• Scarcity. East Melbourne is heritage-constrained, so new supply is limited. That protects value in a way a stadium never will
• Parkland. Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens are permanent amenity

Every one of those works on a wet Tuesday in July. That is the test.

The case against buying on event proximity

Live near a major stadium and you also get event-day traffic, road closures, crowd noise and parking restrictions roughly forty times a year. Long-term tenants price that in — it is often a small discount, not a premium.

If your plan needs the events to pay off, you are dependent on short-stay letting, which in Victoria is now taxed and can be prohibited by your neighbours. That is a fragile foundation for a A$700,000 decision.

What I would look at instead

If you like the inner-east, buy it for the transport, the hospitals and the constrained supply. If you are buying for a child studying, proximity to their campus beats proximity to anything else. If you want yield, the honest comparison is a normal twelve-month lease in a well-connected suburb — not a short-stay projection built on a fortnight of tennis.

And check three things before you commit anywhere in Victoria:

• The owners corporation rules on short stays, and the last two AGM minutes
• Your total entry cost — 8% foreign purchaser duty on top of standard stamp duty, plus FIRB
• The absentee owner land tax surcharge you will pay every year you hold it

If you want a straight recommendation

Tell me your budget, whether this is an investment or somewhere family will stay, and how close it needs to be to a particular campus or workplace. I will shortlist on transport, supply and tenant demand — the things that hold up in a quiet week.

If a location only works when there is a concert on, I will tell you that rather than sell you the atmosphere.