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Perth experienced steady rent and median house prices over the month of November, with rental prices being described as swinging to landlords' favour, according to new data.
According to data from the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA), Perth’s median house price grew 1 per cent up to $525,000 over the September quarter, with the median rental price holding at $350 per week.
“Perth’s median house price has shown resilience over the last few months. We’ve seen the median increase in the three months to November, up a healthy 1.9 per cent when compared to three months ago,” said REIWA president Hayden Groves.
“Similarly, Perth’s median rent has not changed since April, which is the longest streak of stable prices we’ve seen since 2013. After a prolonged period of declining rental prices, these steady results are a welcome change for property investors.”
The suburb experiencing the largest median house price rise was Perth City, up 6.8 per cent over the September quarter.
Mr Groves said other strong performing areas include Stirling East, up 4.3 per cent, South Perth/Victoria Park, up 3.7 per cent, and Melville, up 3.4 per cent.
In terms of the rental market, Mundaring proved to be the highest performing area, with median rents rising $30 to $430 per week over the September quarter.
“It’s encouraging that prices in both the sales and rental markets are steady or improving. While we don’t expect there to be significant price growth in 2018, the stability we’ve observed in the Perth market over the last half of 2017 points to the start of the recovery,” Mr Groves said.
Meanwhile, Troy Gunasekera of Property Club said that Perth is currently the most affordable state to live in, with the economic climate turning from favouring tenants to investors with rental properties.
“Rents in Perth are now very affordable because landlords have had to significantly reduce rents over the past two years in response to an oversupply of rental properties, with the average rental vacancy rate in Perth now at around 7 per cent,” Mr Gunasekera said.
“The very low rents in Perth have been the hangover of the massive building boom in the city between 2012 and 2016. At one period of time during this boom, Perth was building more homes than Melbourne.”
However, research from Property Club shows a large fall-off in new housing construction for Perth over the last two years, a trend Mr Gunasekera says will favour landlords in the future.
“The message for landlords is that there are now brighter times ahead for them in the Perth property market,” he said.
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