Western Australia looks primed for property investors after years of struggle post-mining boom.
There are plenty of signs the market in Perth has bottomed out and it comes at a time when major infrastructure projects like the new Perth Stadium, Elizabeth Quay, Scarborough beachfront redevelopment and Yagan Square come together to bring the city’s development forward in leaps and bounds.
It could be the perfect time to look west for property investment as prices in Sydney and Melbourne look to have peaked for the foreseeable future.
WA executive director at the Property Council of Australia Lino Iacomella says the market fundamentals in the state of Western Australia point to a revival.
“Most importantly the development industry has a clear growth plan for Perth in the State Government’s METRONET public transport blueprint for the metropolitan area,” he told Australian Broker.
“In 2018 the property industry is expecting real progress on key policy reforms that will support WA’s growth, including modernising the state’s aging strata laws, adopting uniform local planning regulations and the introduction of a plan to guide WA’s infrastructure needs to enable the construction of new precincts and places that WA needs to support future growth.”
The median house price in Perth ended the year on $525,000, and property prices fell 2.3 per cent over the 12 months.
In the December quarter however, prices did rise by 0.1 per cent in what looks like a taste of things to come.
Growth is still expected to be slow in Perth for 2018 with population growth in the State still sluggish.
Senior analyst at CoreLogic Cameron Kusher told the ABC things were slowly improving in Perth.
“Overall, after seven or eight pretty poor years for the housing market in Perth, things are slowly starting to get a bit better,” he said.
“We’ve started to see sales volumes pick up in Perth, which means there’s more buyers coming into the market.”
“We’ve seen a lot of people leave Western Australia but the rate of interstate migration away from WA is now starting to slow.”
“Obviously values have come off about 11 per cent from the peak since 2014.”
“There’s a level of confidence returning to the Perth market.”
