If your budget is under $500,000, Victoria's coast has the clearest options. In 2025, the median house price (the middle sale) was $375,000 in Loch Sport, $380,000 in Golden Beach and $435,000 in Portland, according to Valuer-General Victoria. Portland's median was higher in early 2026, though, at $542,500.

Stretch to $600,000 and five more Victorian coastal towns come into range. In Queensland, the Burdekin and Hinchinbrook council areas, home to beach villages such as Alva Beach and Forrest Beach, had medians under $400,000 in early 2026. Those figures cover each whole shire, not just its beach villages.

Whether you're after a holiday home, a beach shack or a sea change, the table below shows where your budget fits. It also shows how many houses sold, so you can see how much weight each median carries, and how many homes sat empty on a winter Census night, a rough sign of how many are holiday homes.

With a shortlist in hand, you can start looking at beach houses for sale in those towns.

Which coastal towns have houses under $600,000?

Eight Victorian coastal towns had a median house price under $600,000 in 2025, each based on at least 20 house sales.

The prices and sales counts are Valuer-General Victoria's, for houses sold in calendar year 2025. The last column is the share of private dwellings the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found unoccupied on Census night, 10 August 2021. Across Australia, 10.1 per cent were empty that night, which gives you a yardstick for each town.

Melbourne was under stay-at-home orders that night, so the Victorian shares may be higher than on a usual winter night.

Up to half the houses in each town sold for less than its median. Golden Beach, Lake Tyers Beach and Sunset Strip each had fewer than 30 sales, and with so few, a few unusual sales can move the median a long way. Treat those figures as a rough guide.

What is each town like?

Loch Sport: $375,000

Loch Sport is a lakeside village in Gippsland, and a causeway from the township takes you to Ninety Mile Beach. It's the cheapest town here, though prices have climbed a long way: the median was $145,000 in 2015.

If you're thinking of living there all year, it's worth knowing that 69.7 per cent of its homes were unoccupied on Census night, a winter night in August 2021. That's a sign many are holiday homes.

Golden Beach: $380,000

Wellington Shire's plan for the area says Golden Beach is serviced with electricity, but that no town water supply or sewerage was provided. Much of the land along this stretch of Ninety Mile Beach isn't suitable for building, because of flooding, erosion, bushfire risk or a lack of services.

If you're looking at a block of land, check its zoning with Wellington Shire Council first. For what living there is like, see our guide to the best areas to move for a sea change.

Portland: $435,000

Portland could suit you if you'd rather a town where most homes are lived in. On Census night it had the lowest share of unoccupied homes on this list, 11.6 per cent. And 217 houses sold there in 2025, more than in any other town here.

Check recent sales before you set your budget, though. Portland's median for January to March 2026 was $542,500, on 68 sales.

Venus Bay: $505,000

Venus Bay is a small settlement among the sand dunes of Gippsland, with surf beaches and the sheltered water of Anderson Inlet. It had the highest share of unoccupied homes on this list on Census night: 75.5 per cent.

Lakes Entrance: $518,000

Lakes Entrance sits on the edge of Ninety Mile Beach, where the Gippsland Lakes meet the Southern Ocean. Lifesavers patrol its beach in summer. If you're budgeting on the 2025 figure, early 2026 was close to it: a median of $515,000 for January to March, on 45 sales.

Lake Tyers Beach: $565,000

Lake Tyers Beach is a 10-minute drive from Lakes Entrance. Families come for the lake's calmer water as well as the beach. The beach itself isn't patrolled.

Coronet Bay: $570,000

Coronet Bay is one of Bass Coast's Western Port villages, just over an hour from Melbourne and 15 minutes from Phillip Island. It could suit you if you want to stay within easy reach of the city.

Sunset Strip: $595,000

Sunset Strip is on Phillip Island. It's a cheaper way onto the island than Cowes, the island's commercial hub, where the median was $747,500 in 2025. With only 22 sales, though, Sunset Strip's median can swing: in 2024 it was $640,000.

What about Queensland?

If you're open to north Queensland, three council areas there with beach villages had house medians under $600,000 in January to March 2026, according to the Queensland Government Statistician's Office. These figures are by council area, not by town, so each covers the whole shire, inland towns included.

• Burdekin: $385,000, on 81 sales. Its coast includes the beach villages of Alva Beach and Wunjunga.
• Hinchinbrook: $390,000, on 63 sales. It includes the beach villages of Forrest Beach, Taylors Beach and Lucinda.
• Cassowary Coast: $520,000, on 138 sales. It takes in Cardwell and the beaches at Etty Bay, Mission Beach and Kurrimine. Its median has risen every quarter since January to March 2025, when it was $438,000.

Further south, the Isaac council area had a lower median, $350,000 on 133 sales, and its coast includes Clairview and Carmila Beach. But its largest town is Moranbah, a coal-mining centre, so that figure says little about beach houses.

Two things to know before buying in the north. First, marine stingers such as box jellyfish and Irukandji are in tropical Queensland waters all year, and the risk is higher from November to May. The Cassowary Coast council has stinger nets at Etty Bay, Mission Beach, South Mission Beach and Kurrimine, but they don't stop smaller jellyfish such as Irukandji.

Second, insurance can cost a lot. In a 2026 Hinchinbrook Shire Council survey, 77.4 per cent of the more than 300 residents who took part said premiums had become unaffordable. More than half of those who'd had trouble with insurance said they'd been told their home was in a flood-prone area.

What about the other states?

If you're looking at a coastal town in another state, see whether it has an OpenAgent suburb profile. Each profile shows the town's price trend and how many homes sold recently. Their figures come from a different source and period to ours, so they won't match exactly.

If you had the NSW coast in mind, expect to pay more. On the NSW Government's figures for January to March 2026, the median house price was above $650,000 in almost every coastal postcode outside Greater Sydney that had a published figure. If you'd still like to look there, see our guide to coastal NSW towns to buy property in.

You won't find towns from South Australia, Western Australia or Tasmania here. As far as we could find, South Australia publishes house prices only for Adelaide's suburbs, plus one figure pooled across eight major country towns. And we couldn't find free town-by-town house prices from the WA or Tasmanian governments.

What should you check before buying on the coast?

• What you're buying. In a land lease community, you may own the home but not the land. In NSW, for example, you lease the site from the community's operator and pay rent for it.
• Flood and bushfire. In Victoria, you can get a free Planning Property Report. It shows whether a flood overlay (a planning control on flood-prone land) applies, and whether the land is in a bushfire-prone area.
• Newer flood maps. Councils update their flood maps. Wellington Shire in Gippsland is replacing its mapping, so check the proposed maps too. The council also points buyers to free flood advice from the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority.
• Coastal hazards in Queensland. You can look up the government's coastal hazard area maps for erosion and storm tide by the property's lot and plan number (its legal description). The government says they're indicative only, so treat them as a guide.
• Insurance. Get a quote before you sign, especially in flood-prone and cyclone areas.
• The cost of buying. Stamp duty and other upfront costs come on top of the price. See our guides to the costs of buying a house in Victoria and in Queensland.
• Holiday letting. In Victoria, short-stay bookings of under 28 consecutive days in a holiday home attract a 7.5 per cent levy on the total booking fee, including any cleaning fee. It doesn't apply to your main residence. For tips, see our guide to running a successful Airbnb.
• Leaving it empty. Victoria's vacant residential land tax can apply to a home that wasn't lived in for more than six months of the previous calendar year. Time it's let to tenants or short-stay guests counts as lived in.
• The holiday-home exemption. A genuine holiday home is exempt from that tax if you or your relatives use it for at least four weeks a year and your main home, owned or rented, is in Australia. You can claim it for only one holiday home a year: notify the State Revenue Office, then apply.
• The off-season. A town full of holiday homes can feel very different in winter and in January. It's worth visiting out of season before you commit.

If you'll need to sell your current home first, it helps to know what it's worth.

FAQ

Where these figures come from

How we chose the towns: each town sits on an ocean beach or an open bay, or is a short trip across from one, as Loch Sport is. Each is outside the capital-city areas the ABS defines and had at least 20 house sales in the period.

We left out lake and river towns with no ocean or bay beach, towns set back from the coast whose boundaries run to it (such as Wonthaggi), and Geelong's suburbs on Corio Bay. Towns with fewer sales, or whose 2025 sales count wasn't published, are left out too.

Figures differ by source and period, so another report's median for the same town may not match these.

Victoria: median house prices by suburb from Valuer-General Victoria's yearly "Houses by suburb 2015 to 2025" series (including the 2015 and 2024 figures), and quarterly medians and 2025 sales counts from its Victorian Property Sales Report (October to December 2025 and January to March 2026 editions).

Queensland: median prices of detached houses by council area, January to March 2026, from the Queensland Government Statistician's Office residential land development activity spreadsheet, as at 9 October 2026.

NSW: non-strata (house) sale prices by postcode, January to March 2026, from the © State of New South Wales (Department of Communities and Justice) Rent and Sales Report, read in October 2026.

Empty homes: ABS 2021 Census QuickStats for each locality. Melbourne's stay-at-home orders on Census night are from the Premier of Victoria's statement of 9 August 2021, the day before.

Buyer checks, read in October 2026:

• the Victorian State Revenue Office's short stay levy, vacant residential land tax and exemptions pages
• the Queensland Government's coastal hazards and dangerous marine life pages
• the NSW Government's land lease communities page
• the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, and the Wellington, Burdekin, Hinchinbrook, Cassowary Coast and Isaac councils

Town descriptions are from Visit Victoria, Parks Victoria and Visit Bass Coast.