Perth Houses Highest Ever at $510,000

Median house prices in Perth are at their highest level ever. Last month, the median house price for Perth was $510,000 which is $5,000 more than the previous peak in 2010. According to this article, most sales were between $600,000 to $700,000 with a good number of houses being sold just under $500,000.

Some of the areas mentioned in the article which had increased sales activity have been areas which first home buyers have been targeting all year such as Gosnells, Armadale, Serpentine-Jarrahdale, Rockingham, Kwinana and Wanneroo. The suburbs just outside of the CBD have faced a shortage of listings, forcing up prices. There have also been reports that real estate agents have been offering $30 Coles vouchers to homeowners that were willing to undergo a valuation on their property.

So where do you stand in the current rush for land? Are you looking to buy? Or looking to sell?

Renting in Perth Scarcer in 2013

It's becoming a pretty tight market for those looking for a home to rent in Perth. REIWA recently announced that the median rent in Perth jumped 12% from last year to $470 per week. The gap between renting an apartment and a house is narrowing in Perth as people become more desperate to find any kind of accommodation to rent, discarding personal preferences in the scramble to be housed. The current median price for a house is $480 per week whereas the median price for a unit is only $30 less at $450 per week. This is in spite of a 50% increase in properties for rent in the past six months!

The first home buyers have started to move from rentals to purchasing a new home but this has been offset by many new migrants coming to Perth from the eastern states and abroad. It will be an interesting year for Perth as the mining boom continues to slow down. Last Friday, it was announced that the $45 billion dollar Browse project by Woodside in the north had been shelved.

Lowest Number of Perth Homes For Sale

It's been six years since Perth has experienced the house shortage that we are now experiencing, with the number of properties available for sale in Perth dropping 50% in the last 12 months to under 7,000. Actually 5,390 houses and 1,427 units which is a staggering statistic considering that about 1,000 migrants move to WA every week. The Real Estate Institute of WA is calling this a crisis which could cause house prices to suddenly jump up in the coming months.

The median house price has increased in the past three months by 2.8% to a record high of $510,000 which surpasses the prices three years ago. Will people start using the b word again?