What WA property owners and investors are looking for in 2018

For good reason WA property owners and investors have high expectations in 2018 after a run of lean years.

Top of the list is a turnaround in market sentiment backed up by real evidence of job growth to fuel demand for new homes and business premises.

At the end of 2017 most of the market fundamentals for a revival were in place. WA property values are some of the most affordable in the country, interest rates remain at historic lows, an oversupply in housing was mostly soaked up, demand returned for new office space, and most importantly the development industry has a clear growth plan for Perth in the state Government’s METRONET public transport blueprint for the metropolitan area.

The only spoiler in WA’s growth equation is weak population growth.

The most recent annual increase in WA’s population was just 20,000 people, well down on the boom peak of 85,000 additional people each year and the historic annual growth rate for WA of 45,000. 

But WA’s history shows we will track back to the average population growth levels as the economy expands, and job growth is sustained. There is early evidence this is happening in the traditional and new resources industries like lithium mining, a rapidly growing high-tech sector value-adding to the resources industry, and WA’s array of new hotel and tourism offerings.

So now is the time to prepare for WA’s next growth cycle. In 2018 the property industry is expecting real progress on key policy reforms that will support WA’s growth, including modernising the state’s aging strata laws, adopting uniform local planning regulations and the introduction of a plan to guide WA’s infrastructure needs to enable the construction of new precincts and places that WA needs to support future growth.

• Lino Iacomella, WA Executive Director, Property Council of Australia