Forrest is in Colac Otway LGA, VIC, postcode 3236, with population 257.
The page has enough signal to be useful, but the story is mixed rather than decisive. Use compare mode to pressure-test it against stronger nearby options, then use the calculator if it still makes the shortlist.
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%).
79% of homes here are owner-occupied and 14% rented, with 7% of landlords negatively geared.
79% 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 41% · VIC median 17%
Nationally · lighter rent burden than 1% of AU suburbs
Owners with a mortgage repay a median of $1,509/mo, while renters pay about $1,950/mo — renting runs $441/mo higher on these medians.
At the median asking rent, about 62% of households here would spend more than 30% of income on rent (rent stress line: $1,500/wk income).
Getting to work: 51% drive, 0% public transport, 11% walk or cycle, 33% worked from home (2021 Census, taken during COVID-era work-from-home arrangements).
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 0.7× the $23,400/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.
ABS population projection (2022 base) for the Otway SA2 statistical area — the finest official projection grain available; suburb-level projections do not exist.
Forrest (postcode 3236) is a sparsely populated locality in Victoria within the Colac Otway local government area. The area has roughly 257 residents and a mature demographic, with a median age of 52. Households earn a median income of $57K per year, with an average household size of 2.1 people. Recent annual estimates show population movement staying broadly stable across the broader catchment, with population growth running at +0.0% year-on-year at the LGA level. VIC employment has moved +0.9% 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, labourers. Employment in the area leans toward healthcare and manufacturing. The top ancestries reported are English, Australian, Irish.
The current median weekly rent is $450. The median monthly mortgage repayment is $1,509.
Forrest is served by 1 school, including 1 primary. The average ICSEA score is 1009, which is around the national average of 1,000. Public transport access includes 2 bus stops. The crime rate in the Colac Otway LGA is higher than average at 8,804 incidents per 100,000 population.
From an investment perspective, Population growth of +0.0% year-on-year points to stable demand fundamentals. Building approvals have changed +0% year-on-year, indicating steady development activity.
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There is enough direct local evidence on Forrest for a first-pass decision.
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.
Forrest is in the Colac Otway Local Government Area, VIC, postcode 3236. Council-level context for Colac Otway LGA (suburb mix, population, rent, and price coverage) is available on the QuickProperty LGA page.
The median weekly rent in Forrest is $450/wk, based on the current market rent dataset. The current rent signal is rent context available.
Rent context available: Forrest 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 Forrest 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.