ColacVIC · suburb profile
VIC 3250 · Colac Otway
Daily life in Colac is characterized by a strong sense of community and a slower pace typical of regional towns. The majority of residents, 66.6%, commute by car, reflecting the limited public transport options, which are used by only 0.3% of the population. The town has a significant number of labourers, making up 25.9% of the workforce, and the main industries include meat processing and ice cream manufacturing.
Sales · 12 months to August 2026
What property sold for in Colac
Houses · Houses in Colac run to a median of $510,000, cheaper than 99% of the Victorian suburbs we cover, and up 8.2% on the year.
The middle half of houses sold between $450,000 and $585,000.
Houses
$510k
median of 153 sales
8.2% up on the previous twelve months.
Cheaper than 99% of the 426 suburbs we cover in Victoria.
Half sold between $450k and $585k.
Last sold within the past two weeks
Units
$360k
median of 23 sales
Too few sales to be reliable — treat as a rough guide
Half sold between $325k and $455k.
Last sold within the past month
Land
$260k
median of 20 sales
Too few sales to be reliable — treat as a rough guide
Half sold between $246k and $275k.
Last sold one to two months ago
196 sales on record · data to 30 August 2026
Since 2022
How prices have moved
Houses · The longer arc runs $500,000 in 2022 to $510,000 now, a gain of 2%.
- Houses
- Units
- Land
Dashed lines and hollow points are part years — incomplete, so a dip may only mean fewer sales have happened yet. A break in a line is a year with no published figure, not a fall to zero.
| Year | Houses | Units | Land |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 · part year | $505k | $450k | $260k |
| 2025 · part year | $489k | $338k | $260k |
| 2024 | $463k | $266k | |
| 2023 | $481k | $440k | $270k |
| 2022 | $500k | $380k | $298k |
Quarter by quarter
| Quarter | Median | Sales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q2 | $515k | 37 | +6.2% |
| 2026 Q1 | $485k | 43 | -6.4% |
| 2025 Q4 | $518k | 52 | +9.7% |
| Quarter | Median | Sales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q2 | $360k | 5 | -28%low confidence5 sales this quarter, 6 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2026 Q1 | $500k | 6 | +51.5%low confidence6 sales this quarter, 9 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2025 Q4 | $330k | 9 |
| Quarter | Median | Sales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q2 | $260k | 9 | -1.1%low confidence9 sales this quarter, 6 the quarter before. Under 30 either side, the movement is mostly which homes happened to sell rather than the market moving. |
| 2026 Q1 | $263k | 6 |
A change is marked low confidence where either quarter had fewer than 30 sales. The medians are real; with a handful of sales the movement between them is mostly which homes happened to change hands, not the market moving.
Last 12 months
What an extra bedroom costs in Colac
Houses
In Colac, over the last 12 months, a three-bedroom house has a median of $510,000 from 105 sales, while a four-bedroom house has a median of $613,000 from 24 sales.
| Bedrooms | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | $414k | 20 · few |
| 3 | $510k | 105 |
| 4 | $613k | 24 · few |
Units
In Colac, over the last 12 months, a two-bedroom unit has a median of $345,000 from 15 sales, while a three-bedroom unit has a median of $525,000 from 6 sales.
| Bedrooms | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | $345k | 15 · few |
| 3 | $525k | 6 · few |
Counts with fewer than five sales are left out rather than estimated, and bigger does not always mean dearer — a bedroom count with few sales can be pulled either way by the particular homes that happened to change hands.
7 schools · 2025 figures
Who goes to school in Colac
All schools · Colac's 7 schools teach 1,923 students, down 9% in ten years — and 5 government catchments cross the suburb.
Schools here
7
4 primary · 2 secondary · 1 Prep-to-12
Students, all schools
1,923
2025 · −9.0% since 2015
At primary schoolsStudents at schools whose type is “Primary”. It excludes children in primary years at a Prep-to-12 college — they are counted in the tile beside this one. This number answers “are the primary schools here filling or emptying?”
−15.9%
621 students · five years
Children in primary yearsChildren in Years 1–6 at any school, including Prep-to-12 colleges. This answers “are there still young families here?” — a different question from the tile on the left, which is why the two can move in opposite directions.
Prep and ungraded students are counted separately again; see the chart below.
−16.0%
534 · Years 1–6, anywhere
11 years · two ways to read them
Enrolments, 2015–2025
The same students, counted two ways — by the kind of school they attend, and by the year they are in. They answer different questions and can point in different directions. Both views are in the page; the buttons only change which is visible.
Over 10 years the suburb's primary schools have lost 20% of their students, while its schools running Prep to Year 12 have grown 41.4%.
- Primary schools
- Secondary schools
- Prep-to-12 & specialist
Show data table
| Year | Primary schools | Secondary schools | Prep-to-12 & specialist |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 776 | 1,279 | 58 |
| 2016 | 757 | 1,252 | 76 |
| 2017 | 775 | 1,209 | 81 |
| 2018 | 769 | 1,194 | 71 |
| 2019 | 737 | 1,223 | 60 |
| 2020 | 738 | 1,192 | 59 |
| 2021 | 723 | 1,232 | 56 |
| 2022 | 684 | 1,237 | 64 |
| 2023 | 665 | 1,208 | 53 |
| 2024 | 660 | 1,220 | 80 |
| 2025 | 621 | 1,220 | 82 |
Which schools in Colac are filling and which are emptying. A school that covers Prep to Year 12 is counted once, in its own line — its primary-age students are not in the primary schools line.
- Years 1–6
- Years 7–12
- Prep & ungradedTwo groups that sit outside the numbered year levels: Prep — the first year of school, which the national data does not number — and ungraded students at specialist schools, who are not placed in a year level at all.
A suburb with a specialist school will have a large line here.
Show data table
| Year | Years 1–6 | Years 7–12 | Prep & ungraded | All students |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 652 | 1,279 | 182 | 2,113 |
| 2016 | 652 | 1,252 | 181 | 2,085 |
| 2017 | 665 | 1,209 | 191 | 2,065 |
| 2018 | 664 | 1,194 | 176 | 2,034 |
| 2019 | 636 | 1,223 | 161 | 2,020 |
| 2020 | 636 | 1,192 | 161 | 1,989 |
| 2021 | 616 | 1,232 | 163 | 2,011 |
| 2022 | 603 | 1,237 | 145 | 1,985 |
| 2023 | 587 | 1,208 | 131 | 1,926 |
| 2024 | 566 | 1,220 | 174 | 1,960 |
| 2025 | 534 | 1,220 | 169 | 1,923 |
This counts children by the year they are in, not by the kind of school they attend — so a Prep-to-12 college contributes to every line. The three add up to every student in the suburb.
2025 · ACARA
All 7 schools in Colac
Ordered by size, not by results — 5 government, 2 Catholic and 0 independent. Schools with more than one campus are counted once.
What these columns mean
- Type
- Prep-to-12 is one school a child can start and finish at without changing schools. Specialist schools also appear as Prep-to-12.
- 5 yr
- Change in enrolments against five years ago, not against last year. Enrolments move slowly, so a single year is mostly noise.
- VCE median
- The middle study score of that school’s Year 12 students, on a scale of 0–50. The state median in 2025 was 29.0, so a school above that sits above the middle and one below it sits below. The smaller number after it is how many students the figure rests on. Under 30 students we show nothing at all — a small cohort’s result swings from year to year on who happened to sit the exams, which is easily mistaken for the school changing.
| School | Sector | Type | Students | 5 yr | 10 yr | VCE median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trinity College Colac | Catholic | Secondary | 744 | +1.9% | −0.4% | 28 · 149 |
| Colac Secondary College | Government | Secondary | 476 | +3.0% | −10.5% | 25 · 97 |
| St Mary's School | Catholic | Primary | 266 | −8.6% | no change | — |
| Colac Primary School | Government | Primary | 164 | −26.1% | −28.1% | — |
| Colac South West Primary School | Government | Primary | 129 | +6.6% | −22.3% | — |
| Lake Colac School | Government | Prep-to-12 | 82 | +39.0% | +41.4% | — |
| Colac West Primary School | Government | Primary | 62 | −40.4% | −46.6% | — |
2 schools in Colac reported median VCE study scores of 25 to 28, against a state median of 29.
Government zoning
Which catchments cover Colac
5 government catchments cover Colac — 1 secondary and 4 primary — so which one applies depends on the address, not the suburb. The secondary catchment is Colac Secondary College.
| CatchmentThe area around a government school where living there guarantees your child a place. Boundaries follow streets, not suburb lines, so an address near the edge of a suburb may be zoned elsewhere. They are redrawn each year. | Level |
|---|---|
| Colac Secondary College | Secondary |
| Colac Primary School | Primary |
| Colac South West Primary School | Primary |
| Colac West Primary School | Primary |
| Elliminyt Primary School | Primary |
The read
What living here is actually like
Colac is a regional town in Victoria with a population of 9,243. The median age is 44, which is higher than the Victorian average of 38, indicating a more mature population. The gender distribution is fairly balanced with 48.6% male and 51.4% female. The suburb has a significant proportion of couple without children households at 43.6%, and single-person households make up 38.7% of the population. The area has a diverse age distribution with 5.4% of the population aged 0-4 and 5.5% aged 5-9.
Buyer fit
Who this suburb suits
One score per buyer type, out of 100, built from the demographic, housing and commute profile. Strongest first.
Buyer-fit score
Colac · 0–100
Show data table
| Buyer type | Score |
|---|---|
| Retirees | 75 |
| First home buyers | 70 |
| Families | 65 |
| Investors | 60 |
| Professionals | 55 |
Why retirees score highest
The signals doing the work
- Higher median age of 44, indicating a mature community
- High percentage of couple without children households
- Affordable cost of living with low median rent
- Community-oriented lifestyle
Against the state
How Colac differs from Victoria
Every bar is this suburb. The vertical tick is the Victorian figure — the gap between them is the story.
Housing & movement
What’s built here, and how people leave in the morning
Dwelling mix
Share of occupied private dwellings
Show data table
| Dwelling type | Share |
|---|---|
| Separate houses | 85.9% |
| Townhouses | 12.6% |
How people get to work
Method of travel, 2021 Census
Show data table
| Method | Share |
|---|---|
| Worked from home | 5.5% |
| Drove a car | 66.6% |
| Public transport | 0.3% |
| Walked only | 5.1% |
| Car passenger | 7.1% |
Costs 2021 Census
Census figures, collected in 2021. Rents and repayments have moved since — for what property is selling for now, see .
Top occupations
Share of the employed workforce
Key highlights
- Low unemployment rate at 3.2%, below the state average
- High percentage of separate houses at 85.9%
- Significant local industry presence, especially in meat processing (6.9%)
- High percentage of residents born in Australia at 82.9%
- Affordable median weekly rent at $260
Things to be aware of
- Lower educational attainment with 10.3% holding a bachelor's degree compared to VIC's 29.2%
- Below average median household income at $1,108 per week
- Higher percentage of low-income households at 27.8%
- Limited public transport usage at 0.3%
- Higher prevalence of health conditions like arthritis at 12.5%
Coming soon to this page
Where the richer profile lands
Schools & catchments
Zoned primary and secondary, NAPLAN bands, distances.
Transport & access
Stations, tram routes, drive time to the CBD, walkability.
Development activity
Permits approved, projects underway, zoning changes.
Want to dig into one address in Colac?
A suburb page gets you this far. For a specific block you get what homes of that size sell for here, the schools that address is zoned to, any subdivisions proposed within 500 m, plus lot dimensions, easements, planning overlays and true sun aspect — free, no account.
X-Ray an address →Data sources
Demographic figures from the Census of Population and Housing © Australian Bureau of Statistics, used under Creative Commons Attribution.
Cadastral and boundary data contains information © State of Victoria (Vicmap), licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Narrative summaries are AI-generated from the underlying data and may contain errors.
School details, enrolments and senior secondary results from the National Schools Data Collection © Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
School catchment boundaries contain information © State of Victoria (Department of Education), licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Base map © Mapbox © OpenStreetMap. Improve this map at openstreetmap.org/fixthemap.
Informational only — not financial, legal or planning advice. Verify zoning, overlays and catchments with the relevant council before relying on them. Data vintage: 2021 Census.