West Australian property market in freefall
With the resources boom evaporating, so too are the high prices for West Australian properties, though so far the effect has been mostly at the high end of the market, rather than properties in the first home buyer market.
Values of $1 million-plus properties have fallen 20 per cent, with affluent suburbs seeing "Properties ... purchased as recently as a year ago … listed or sold below their original asking price".
House prices in WA were expected to keep falling as miners are forced to retrench staff, with Perth house prices expected to fall by between 8 per cent and 12 per cent this year.
In spite of this much of the lower end of the property market has held ground, held up by a surge in demand for cheaper homes and a tripling of the first-home buyers grant, according to the REIWA.
"Properties priced up to $400,000 in areas popular with first-home buyers have either been steady in price or fallen only very very marginally."
Perth home prices fell 4 per cent during the December quarter, with the yearly decline at 11 per cent.
The median price of Perth houses was $473,000 at the peak of the West Australian housing boom in December 2007, but a year later is now down to $418,000.
