
Appetite for additional car bays prevalent
www.waaa.net.au. Recent research conducted by WA Apartment Advocacy has shown that while 70% of the 174 respondents were happy with their allocated parking bays in their apartment development, an astonishing 50% would be prepared pay an additional $25,000 for another car space. Of the 30% who were not happy with the number of allocated parking bays, the majority of these were residents with just one car bay. We have often heard the mantra from developers that they would be ha

Appetite for change is on the horizon
PropertyESP recently attended the Perth Cities Summit co-ordinated by John Carey Member for Perth. With over 350 people in attendance, everyone was seated randomly and provided with 35 ideas that had been derived from the previous workshops hosted in Northbridge, East Perth and West Perth. These ideas included a variety of themes which aligned with PropertyESP’s agenda including: Revitalise Heirisson Island as an indigenous cultural hub Create Renew Perth to activate vacant

Desire for East Perth to gain 24/7 heartbeat
Samantha Reece recently attended the East Perth session of the Cities Summit that has been co-ordinated by Member for Perth John Carey. Over 60 people attended this session which comprised of businesses, developers, residents and interested parties. Quite predictably the session dealt with the areas strengths, its problems and what the community would like to see occur. East Perth was liked because of its walkability, the gardens and open spaces, Claisebrook Cove and the fact

Perth land prices most affordable nationwide – but lack of variety is our downfall
Samantha Reece, Director of PropertyESP recently attended the UDIA lunch with Colin Keane of Research 4 and then participated with the panel discussion alongside David Cresp (Urbis) and Gavin Hegney. Certainly Colin’s presentation was somewhat telling of Perth’s current status for land sales. While Perth peaked in 2013 with 1078 lot sales per calendar month. In 2016 our underlying demand for land is now 637 lots per calendar month and actual sales are 478. However there are

Perth’s housing supply falls short
The question on everyone’s lips of late has been “Are we being oversupplied with apartments?” but recent research from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), has shown that in fact increases in housing stock in Perth have failed to match population growth. The study - Housing supply responsiveness in Australia: distribution, drivers and institutional settings, led by Professor Rachel Ong, Deputy Director of

Perth still has $400 million of redevelopment in the pipeline
Samantha Reece recently attended the Property Education Foundation's (PEF) Retail briefing with representatives from Westfield (Kate Holsgrove), Perron Group (Andrew Byars) and Vicinity (Andrew Hall). And while Carousel, Cockburn Central and Morley Galleria are all poised for redevelopment - Perth CBD is also looking to undergo a major spruce up. Jim Tsagalis, Director Lease Equity outlined a number of upcoming projects that would transform the City of Perth including Forrest

Finally East Coast recognises Perth market upswing
Today two East Coast companies, CoreLogic and Moody’s, publicly declared that the worst of Perth’s property market was behind us and they predicted 3% capital growth for houses and 5.6% for apartments over the forthcoming 12 months. Now for some time PropertyESP has been blogging about the upswing in Perth property prices and especially with apartments. That’s because we look at the micro while others look at the macro. For example in Scarborough if you purchased a 3 bedroom

Robust discussion needed for infill
Samantha Reece of PropertyESP recently attended the South Perth planning workshops which dealt with the proposed train station precinct and its overall design. Now in an earlier career path, Samantha was Director of SMR and responsible for a number of community consultation projects including the Gidgegannup town centre. But what was interesting for Samantha in this case, was that the sessions were hosted by a Council and not the developer and hence this allowed for a sharing

Applecross apartments defy the norm
We recently conducted some research on behalf of a client of ours examining what was happening in the apartment market in Applecross and Mt Pleasant from 2011-2016. This data was very interesting because despite having some initial setbacks, these two suburbs have once again rebounded. Looking at 164 apartment sales in the five year period, the analysis showed that the median sale price in Applecross in 2011 was $875,000 and peaked at $1,250,000 in 2014 before settling at $1

Renters seek more
The WA Apartment survey – the first of its kind in WA – recently interviewed 113 renters who have shown that while apartments are their preference, they are seeking more in terms of amenities and space. The survey showed that 39% moved from a house into an apartment and went from 2-3 bedrooms to 1-2 bedrooms. However when asked what they would choose next, while 73% said they would consider an apartment, their preferences were clearly for 2-3 bedrooms. This linked to the fac