Ryan Thompson & Garth Davis – Sydney Morning Herald and WAToday.com.au
Ryan: Award winning Performance Coach, Business Owner, Licensed Agent, Auctioneer | Garth: Investment Property Expert
Property experts warn Perth’s housing crisis to become a ‘catastrophe’ when WA border drops.
…Ryan Thompson is director of a company that coaches real estate agents and runs another company specialising in auctions. He said Perth was already struggling with demand.
“I am told there has been permission given to 30,000 people to return or come to Perth from March and there are another 50,000 awaiting approval,” Mr Thompson said.
The Perth market also had more interstate buyers than ever before with many buying sight unseen while they awaited the reopening.
“I’ve been in real estate for 20 years and I’ve never seen a situation like this before,” he said. “It’s a torpedo heading for a submarine and it will explode.
Mr Thompson expected a gain of at least 10-20 per cent on house prices and possibly even a doubling.
Mr Thompson said to compound matters, the building industry was gridlocked because the borders had cut off its labour supply and increased the cost of materials.
“You’d typically expect releasing land would be a good remedy but building at the moment is a nightmare and you’d be lucky to get something built in two to three years,” he said.
A state government spokeswoman said a campaign was under way to lure construction workers from interstate.
During the pandemic, net interstate migration to WA returned to positive territory (4592) for the first time since 2012-13, meaning for the first time the state gained more residents from the eastern states than it lost to them…
…Garth Davis, whose company advises on property investment across Australia, said WA needed out-of-the-box ideas to mitigate a catastrophic shortfall in rentals.
He said normally new migrants would rent for the first 12-24 months to get a feel for the suburbs and proximity to amenities before buying.
“Rents are already going at $100 per week above asking price in this market … rents will be going at $200 to $400 per week above the asking rent … ridiculously high levels of unaffordability.”
He said measures the state government could take included incentivising residents with spare bedrooms to offer them as short-term rentals.
He also believed any empty property not occupied for at least six months of the year should be charged a substantial ‘vacancy tax’ so overseas owners would not let properties sit idle.
“We have a housing crisis already,” he said. “Which will become a housing catastrophe as the borders reopen.”