Australian Real Estate Market - So Whats Happening?

It’s been a whilst since I wrote about the Australian Real Estate Market so I thought I’d write an entry to give an update on whats going on from a housing perspective in this great land of ours.

In Perth the rising interest rates and an exodus of investors has trebled the number of houses on the market.

Figures released by the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA) show a dramatic increase in number of properties for sale.

The Institute says that the number of properties for sale has climbed from 4-thousand 8-hundred two years ago to almost 17-thousand today.

The President Robb Druitt says some investors are pulling out because it is no longer as profitable to invest in Western Australia and having seen the slow down in the rate by which houses are increasing over here I can certainly validate this point.

Houses are still selling though. On our street alone it doesn’t seem to be too long before the ‘For Sale’ sign outside of peoples houses is quickly replaced with a SOLD sign.

House prices appear to be stabalising at the moment to but this still means that by ‘old Aussie standards’ houses are still a lot more expensive then they were 3 - 5 years ago.

Having said that, it looks like house prices could continue to rise even higher with some Analysts predicting that Housing prices across Australia could rise by a further 40 percent!

Economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel says the housing affordability crisis will only get worse as demand for housing continues to outstrip supply but surprisingly the relatively high interest rates here in Australia could influence this.

Our forecast is for anywhere between 25 and 40 per cent across most of the capital cities… The environment will still stay tough for the next 12 to 18 months because of rising interest rates. But as the interest rate situation stabilises we expect a lot of those pent-up demand pressures to be released onto the market in terms of rising price growth.

Apparently at least 30,000 more homes need to be built each year to keep up with the demand for housing, especially with overseas migration at record highs. Unfortunately the actual number of new houses being built falls well short of this figure.

The lack of land seems to be a pretty large influencing factor here, after all theres no point building 30,000 new houses a year if there is no where to put them and this is starting to have a further knock on effect on housing affordability, especially with first time buyers!

An Article in the Sydney Morning Herald indicates that the average first-home buyer can only afford one in four Sydney properties.

Heading back to Perth again, the average first-home buyer can afford to buy only one in 10 properties!

In summary I think it’s fair to say that the property market here in Australia is a little ‘vexed’ .

I know there are still some great buys in Adelaide. Melbourne also offers opportunities to pick up a nice house at a price which by UK standards is bit of a bargain.

The problem starts if you don’t want to live there.

On the bright side, if your a builder, bricklayer, electrician or someone holding a skill which would be well utilised within the building industry then don’t worry. It looks like you’ll have plenty of work to keep you busy for a very long time

Popularity: 6% [?]

Australian Suburb Profiles - Now that’s Handy

I’ve written recently about the little poll we’ve been running and the interesting results that it’s showing us (615 votes at time of typing).

However identifying the state in which you want to live is one thing, choosing which suburb you want to move into is another.

Getting first hand advice from people living in your shortlisted suburb is going to be a great way to get a view of what living in a suburb is really like.

A quick post in our Australian Real estate and where to live forum might well be a good start however there’s a lot of suburbs out there and waiting for someone who ‘just-so-happens’ to live in the same suburb may not be the most effective use of your time, especially if your looking to settle in one of the more remote areas.

It was whilst doing some research on Suburbs in an attempt to help out a couple of our forum members that I stumbled upon a pretty useful site.

The guys over at Domain.com.au have a handy little section on their site which provides suburb profiles of every suburb in Australia (well, I’ve not been able to find one which isn’t profiled yet).

They provide details of public transport, surrounding suburbs, house price data and a handful of other demographics which are compiled from a variety of sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and research by Australian Property Monitors.

So, to search for what might be your future Suburb then Click Here (Link opens in a new window).

Hopefully you’ll find the info pretty useful

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Extra 400,000 workers needed for Western Australia

I’ve just read an interesting article posted by the Australian Newspaper about the number of extra workers required if Western Australia is going to continue to grow at its current rates.

Apparently an extra 400,000 workers will be needed in Western Australia over the next 10 years if the state is to reap the full benefits of the economic boom.

Despite an increase in the Skilled Migration quota for the 2007 - 2008 year, I’m really not sure where WA is going to find all these people.

Despite the fact that there are “770 people flooding into the State each week” its only a matter of time before this influx of new migrants starts to have a counter productive effect. Read more

Popularity: 37% [?]

Finally we’ve moved into our new home

Jeeze, what an absolutely knackering weekend! We’ve finally moved into our new house after what seems like a lifetime of packing and preparation.

All of our boxes which we packed up in the UK are now sat in the garage waiting to be unpacked.

Despite this, it’s amazing how much crap we we’ve managed to collect in less then a year living down under.

Although its nothing like it was back in the UK, I think we’ll need to do a bit of a sort out whilst finding a perminant home for all of our stuff.

We’ve got most of the jobs done to our house that we wanted to get done before moving in. A monitored burglar alarm was fitted last weekend and the refrigerated reverse cycle ducted air conditioning went in on Thursday, something that will really make a difference as temperatures continue to rise. Read more

Popularity: 33% [?]

Perth Rentals increasing by 20% a year

I’ve written quite a bit about the state of the Western Australian housing market of late.

According to a recent report published by the Real Estate Institute of Australia, paying weekly rent was now a major financial headache for many WA renters.

According to the report the average median rent for a three bedroom property in Perth during the June 2007 quarter was $300.00 per week.

Personally, compared to the $450 a week we’re paying for our four bedroom house in Kinross, I don’t think that’s bad, however this figure does account for 25.7% of the average earnings in Western Australia during the same period so it’s obviously going to be hitting some folks pretty hard.

The report goes onto say that weekly rents are now increasing at a much faster rate than the average weekly earnings in WA which isn’t going to make the whole housing situation any better. Read more

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First time buyers grant - An Overview

Being new residents to Australia we applied for the first time buyers grant as part of our mortgage application.

The First Home Owner Grant (FHOG) scheme was introduced on 1 July 2000 to offset the effect of the GST on home ownership. It is a national scheme funded by the states and territories and administered under their own legislation.

Under the scheme, a one-off grant of up to $7000 is payable to first home owners that satisfy all the eligibility criteria. Although it’s not a massive amount and certainly won’t help you buy the house of your dreams ever little bit helps right?

The First Home Owner Grant form was issued by our bank as part of the mass of documents that needed to be completed as part of our Mortgage application.

Being honest it’s a bit of a pig to fill in. The questions aren’t to hard, but you need to provide a number of documents with the form which you need to get certified.

Thankfully, here in Western Australia, Pharmacists can certify documents so finding a local chemist with a pharmacist shouldn’t prove to difficult. Many Pharmacists (including the one we used) don’t charge to certify documents although some may request a ‘donation’ to one of the local charities. Also, having got to Australia in the first place you should all be experts in the form filling and certification process. Read more

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We own a house!

It’s happened, we finally own our own bricks and mortar here in Australia.

We got the call from our conveyancers that the settlement had been completed just after lunchtime yesterday. What a relief that was!

We picked the keys up and it felt so great unlocking the door and setting foot in our very own home for the first time.

The in-laws who are over from Sydney helping the missus out, post caesarean section also came to have a look and gave it the big thumbs up!

I know at the time it was an absolute pain in the arse but despite the masses of forms that had to be filled in for both the mortgage docs and also the conveyancers we found the whole thing a pretty straight forward exercise. Read more

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Hey Hey it’s settlement day!

Well, the last 6 weeks of stress and form filling should culminate today in the settlement on our new home.

I know it should be a relatively straight forward process but it’ll still be really great to finally get the call telling us that we now own our own bricks and mortar here in Western Australia.

Since arriving here in Perth in November last year we’ve lived in Mindarie keys, the suburb of North Perth and Finally our current spot here in Kinross.

All have been pretty nice houses but because we were renting these properties you never could really call them home. Read more

Popularity: 13% [?]

Inspecting our new home before completion

Well, it’s been a while since I last wrote about the new house we are buying up in Quinns Rocks.

Despite being a little busy recently having a baby, things have been progressing well in the last few weeks. Forms have been filled in and duly returned back to our bank and conveyancers and we are still on track to ‘complete’ this coming Tuesday.

Today we have a final inspection. This is something a little alien to me as it’s not something that really happens back in the UK but like many things Aussie it makes perfect sense. Read more

Popularity: 9% [?]

House sale progressing well

It’s been all of 2 weeks since I announced that we had taken the plunge and decided to buy our first bricks and mortar here in Australia.

Since then, things have progressed well. Firstly the Real Estate Agents were pretty insistent that we were able to deliver an ‘unconditional loan approval’ letter from the bank.

This is basically a letter that the bank provides you confirming that they are willing to loan you the dosh we need to buy the property.

After the issues we had when trying to sell our house in the UK this makes perfect sense. The implications of not delivering the Mortgage Promise within two weeks of signing the offer papers would have been the return of the house onto the market. The $5000 deposit we paid to the estate agents to secure the property would have also been in jeopardy. Read more

Popularity: 5% [?]

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