Top 13 Suburbs to Buy than Rent

For those looking to switch from renting to buying, there are some interesting statistics released by RP Data today show three suburbs in Perth where it is cheaper to buy a place than rent it. Burswood was the only place you can do that with a house, where it is $545 cheaper per month to pay off the average mortgage than to pay the monthly rent. However, for units, it is cheaper to bu a unit in Mt Hawthorn and the Perth city centre than it is to rent it. Mt Hawthorn is $742/month cheaper to buy than rent whereas the city is almost the same, only $27/month cheaper to buy than rent a unit.

In ten other suburbs in Perth, the cost of buying a place is less than $400 more per month than renting. They are listed below in order of how much more you need to pay per month if you were paying off a mortgage for a house/unit in that suburb. 

Suburb	Type	Median price	Monthly Rent	Difference
Mount Hawthorn	Unit	$236,077	$2,037	-$742.24
Burswood	House	$671,183	$4,225	-$544.87
Perth	Unit	$469,237	$2,600	-$27.15
Glendalough	House	$360,555	$1,950	$26.94
West Perth	Unit	$484,302	$2,578	$77.12
Glendalough	Unit	$300,623	$1,517	$131.67
Osborne Park	House	$354,275	$1,777	$165.84
Ascot	Unit	$426,462	$2,167	$171.65
Rivervale	Unit	$356,174	$1,733	$219.59
Osborne Park	Unit	$296,170	$1,387	$237.25
Jolimont	Unit	$343,892	$1,603	$282.24
Kewdale	Unit	$353,238	$1,625	$311.82
Inglewood	Unit	$347,884	$1,517	$390.80

Other Perth Suburb Posts

• Perth's Six Suburbs in Australia's Top 10 (Aug 12)
• Top 50 First Home Buyer Suburbs (Sept 12)
• Suburbs That Sunk in 2011 (Jun 11)
• Many More posts about Perth Suburbs (2008-2012)

Perth Most Expensive Capital for Land

IF you thought that Perth wasn't too expensive, perhaps you haven't looked at the price of land recently. Perth land has gone up 282% in the last ten years, taking over Sydney's title for most expensive in the country. The average land size in WA is 476m2 for $260,000 which makes a square metre in WA worth $555. Sydney which has always been head and shoulders above the rest of the country in this category comes second with $547 per square metre.

In the last five years, Melbourne has increased the most in price for vacant land, going up 91% since 2007 whereas Perth which had already experienced a massive land grab in 2007 only went up 15% in the same period.

Six Perth Suburbs in Australia's Top 10

In a significant endorsement for the Perth property market, the Your Investment Property magazine this month released their findings from a survey with top property experts around Australia. They listed the top ten suburbs in Australia and would you believe six of that top ten are in Perth!

2012 top 10
Location	State	Distance CBD	Last year’s ranking
1. South Brisbane	Queensland	2kms from Brisbane	Not in top 100
2. Morley	WA	9kms from Perth	Not in top 100
3. Gladstone	Queensland	550kms from Brisbane	#2
4. Como	WA	6kms from Perth	Not in top 100
5. Perth	WA	1km from Perth	Not in top 100
6. South Hedland	WA	1,308kms from Perth	#3
7. Alexandria	NSW	4kms from Sydney	#1
8. Hornsby	NSW	27kms from Sydney	Not in top 100
9. Wembley	WA	5kms from Perth	Not in top 100
10. Fremantle	WA	14kms from Perth	Not in top 100

When you compare last year's top ten, you can see that there has been a serious shift westward in the last 12 months amongst the experts.

2011 top 10
1. Alexandria	Inner Sydney
2. Gladstone	Regional Queensland (mining)
3. South Hedland	Regional WA (mining)
4. Newman	Regional WA (mining
5. Newtown	Inner Sydney
6. Potts Point	Inner Sydney
7. Toowoomba	Regional Queensland
8. Jannali	Outer Sydney
9. Chinchilla	Regional Queensland (mining)
10, Mount Colah	Outer Sydney

So where are you shopping for your next home in Perth?

RBA Announce Interest Rates Remain Unchanged

The RBA today decided to keep interest rates at 3.5%. The RBA mentioned the world's softening economy and  China's continued growth as competing factors for Australia. The labour market showed no signs of major problems with unemployment remaining low.  Inflation has also stayed low, removing the need for an increase in interest rates but the bank acknowledged that the carbon tax will put some pressure on the inflation rate going forward. 

Since there were no major problems with the economy, unemployment and inflation staying under control, the RBA left the rate unchanged for the month of August. 

Perth Getting Six Star Crown Hotel

Crown today announced that they have reached an agreement with the state government to build a six star hotel adjacent to the newly renamed Crown Promenade and Crown Metropol hotels.

Crown Towers Perth will be a $568 million dollar development producing 500 hotel rooms. WA tourism has been hampered by the lack of hotel beds in the city and will welcome this luxury development in the mining state's capital.

The announcement overshadows the other part of the agreement, another 500 more additional gaming machines and 130 gaming tables will be added to the Crown portfolio no doubt explaining how this project will be funded. The hotel aims to be completed by 2016.