Signs of stability appear for Perth property

Declines in the Western Australian property market may be coming to an end, with preliminary figures gathered by the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA) indicating that stability may be returning to the market.

According to REIWA president, Hayden Groves, little change was recorded to key market indicators over the June quarter, as opposed to the steep declines recorded in the recent past.  

“We’re certainly not experiencing the steep declines across the board we once were. Although no one can accurately ascertain the future of the property market, the signs are there that we have finally found, or are very close to finding, the ‘floor’ of the market.”

The REIWA’s preliminary figures found Perth’s median house price coming in at $500,000 in the June quarter. However, Mr Groves said that once all the transactions have settled, he expects the revised June median will come in much closer to the $515,000 recorded in the March quarter.

As for Perth units, the preliminary median of $412,000 was down just 1.8% on the $419,500 recorded in March 2017, indicating that once all sales have settled, the final figures for the quarter could actually end up coming in higher than the previous quarter.

REIWA found a total of 6188 dwelling sales in WA in preliminary figures for the June 2017 quarter – a similar number to the preliminary figures recorded in the previous March and December quarters.

According to Mr Groves, the relatively consistent sales activity is a welcome change from the declining trends being observed previously.

“Once all transactions for the quarter settle, we expect the final sales figure to lift to just above 9000, which will put it on par with the December and March quarter.”

“We’ve also seen a similar trend in the Perth metro area, with early reiwa.com data showing there were 4000 house sales over the quarter. This figure should lift to around 6100 once sales have settled, putting it on par with the revised March quarter figure and slightly higher than the same time last year, which is a trend we also witnessed last quarter.”

Listings for sale in Perth decreased from 14,841 at the end of March to 14,076 by the end of June, with Mr Groves attributing this 5.2% decline in stock levels of steadily improving sales transactions.

“Although we still have plentiful choice in the market, we do appear to have hit a ceiling and are no longer seeing the increases we once were. As long as transactions remain steady, we should see listing levels decline.”

The last indicators of a stabilising market were found to be the average number of days to sell a house, which in Perth dropped from 69 in the March quarter to 68 in the June quarter, and  the percentage of vendors discounting their asking price over the quarter, which dropped marginally to 54.8%, with the amount these sellers were having to reduce by rising from 6.4% in March to 6.6% in June.

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