“When I look at dwelling commencements, WA is currently building at half the rate it did in 2015,” he said.
“There is no building surplus coming for 2025, with WA set to build just 16,800 dwellings in 2025 with the state expected to expand by at least 90,000 people next year.”
Perth’s building industry is unable to keep up with demand.Credit: Ross Swanborough
Strategic Property Group managing director Trent Fleskens said property prices would continue to rise until the state bridged the gap between building new homes and our booming population.
“WA households on average hold two people per dwelling. Last year 98,000 people entered the state. Therefore, we would need around 49,000 new homes to accommodate just these new entrants. We built 17,000 new houses last year and that was at our labour capacity.”
SQM Research has forecast the Reserve Bank to cut the cash rate by between 0.25 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points by the middle of the year, which would immediately stimulate homebuyer demand across the country.
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Premier Roger Cook said WA remained an attractive place for people to move to.
“They’re coming for the jobs, they’re coming for the lifestyle,” he said.
“That puts pressure on our housing industry, it puts pressure on our housing market, it puts pressure on our rental market and that’s the reason why you’ve seen us put so many policies in place to make sure we give everyone an opportunity to put a roof over their head.”
Perth’s property market outperformed the rest of Australia in September, according to CoreLogic, with a median house price up 24.1 per cent for the year to $797,184 – surpassing Melbourne’s $777,390.
The vacancy rate remains at 1.2 per cent, 4.6 percentage points below the pre-COVID average of 5.8 per cent, highlighting ongoing rental shortages across the city.
Homes are sold on average in 12 days, much faster than the national average of 33 days.