Sales growth continues to rise in Western Australia

With price declines experienced in majorcapital cities on the East Coast, its pleasing to see that once again Perth hasseen growth, with CoreLogics latest home value index for dwelling values showingPerth increased 0.2per cent in September.

Top suburbs

Breaking itdown by individual Perth suburbs, Darlington saw the biggest increase to itsmedian in September with a 4.9 per cent increase to $637,500. Following thiswas Armadale with a 4.7 per cent increase to $225,000 and Swan View which wasup 4.5 per cent to $355,000.

Rounding out the top five suburbs to see an increase in median saleprice is Rockingham with a 3.9 per cent increase to $370,000 and Padbury whichwas up three per cent to $517,750.

Of the top 10 suburbs to see an increase in median, six of them arebelow Perths median sale price of $475,000 and none of them were over the onemillion mark, which demonstrates first home buyers and trade up buyers havebeen more active in the market during September.

Properties listed for sale

While it isclear that the West Australian property market is in recovery mode with theworst behind us, we will now have todeal with low levels of supply for some period of time with listings for salein September decreasing 20 per cent compared to last year to sit at 10,656.

Youmay have also heard that WA is also in the midst of a rental shortage with thenumber of properties available to rent dropping below 3,000 in September,compared to 6,169 in September 2019.

Why stock levels are low

Thereare many reasons why levels have dropped so low for both the rental and salesmarket. Firstly, WA is almost back to normal population growth rates, sittingat 1.5 per cent for the year to March 2020, a big improvement from the 0.6 percent per annum only a few years ago.

Thehousing market is struggling to keep up from a demand and supply point of view andwith net migration into WA at the best levels since 2014 before the pandemic,there will be additional pressure on housing demand once borders eventuallyreopen.

Thebuilding bonus scheme does help boost housing supply, however those who havechosen to build will be sitting in rentals over the next 18 months until theirhomes are built, which does not help us in the short-term.

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