The Block in Sunbury and what makes a home aspirational

The Block’s 2027 season will convert three heritage buildings at Sunbury’s former psychiatric hospital into five family homes. PIPA Chair Cate Bakos said the land offered with each home will matter as much as the renovation.

The site

David Bonaddio reported for realestate.com.au and the Herald Sun on the 18th of September 2026 that Channel 9 had acquired three buildings at Jacksons Hill in Sunbury from the Victorian Government. The precinct began as the Sunbury Industrial School in the 1860s, became an asylum in 1879, and later housed the Caloola Training Centre and a Victoria University campus. The government bought the former university site in 2018 and adopted a master plan dividing its 33 hectares into nine precincts, with housing alongside the reuse of heritage buildings.

A 2017 adaptive reuse study assessed one of the three buildings as difficult to adapt and in poor condition, and the other two as in reasonable condition. The article noted that those assessments are almost a decade old.

Cate Bakos on the Sunbury homes

Cate Bakos, Chair of PIPA, described Sunbury as charming, with its own style. She said its outer fringe location, with a town centre that is not a high income area, makes it a most unusual choice for a show associated with prestige homes. She said Nine’s aim of aspirational family homes means the land and the wider property offering could prove as important as the renovations, and that generous gardens and car accommodation would widen their appeal.

To bring an aspirational family to Sunbury, it would need to be on a larger allocation of land than a tight suburban outer-fringe block. It would need to be a special property, not just a special dwelling.

Cate Bakos, Chair of PIPA, quoted in the Herald Sun, the 18th of September 2026

Buyer’s advocate Madeleine Roberts questioned the depth of demand for high end converted homes in the precinct.

Dwelling and land

The same distinction applies to any property. A renovation adds to the value of the dwelling, which depreciates over time. The land, its size, its location and what may be built on it, is the part of a property that tends to carry long-term growth. In an outer fringe market, where buyers can usually choose a new house on a new lot, a converted heritage home competes on what that alternative cannot offer.

Heritage conversions also carry considerations that a standard house does not. Heritage controls can limit future alterations. Where several homes share one building or site, an owners corporation will usually manage common property, with levies and rules that bind each owner. The condition of the original structure, and the cost of maintaining it, continue after the renovation is finished.

Records for a heritage purchase

A buyer of a converted or heritage property should obtain the title, any owners corporation records and the heritage controls that apply, and should have the original structure inspected as well as the new work. Advisers holding the QPIA accreditation can be located through PIPA’s adviser search. Conditions in the Melbourne market this spring are covered in Melbourne’s spring market and the new auction rules.