West Leederville – PropertyESP

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 apartment in 2011 – by 2016 you had achieved 28% capital growth.

Or in Applecross/Mt Pleasant 2016 apartment prices are now back to 2011 boom-time values.

Or even houses in the Western Suburbs (valued below $1 million and which were renovated), PropertyESP demonstrated they achieved 21% capital growth/annum (despite what was reported in the media).

Plus analysing apartments in Churchlands and West Leederville, we were also able to demonstrate property growth from 2013 – 10% and 2% respectively.

But regardless of what a WA analyst says, it appears that we need the nod of approval from the East before we actually believe the good news!

Despite our level of cynicism for our Eastern States counterparts, PropertyESP is still glad for this national endorsement as it may actually infuse a sense of optimism with WA buyers and that is good news for the industry overall.

If you would like to see a WA company provide detailed analysis about your suburb of choice then contact us for a chat. We make sense of property – and we are proud of it!

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 fact that 20% were using a bedroom as a study/home office.

Convenience was also a major driver when choosing an apartment, with 91% of the renters in walking distance to public transport, 90% to cafes, 86% to a grocery shop and 84% to services such as hairdressers.

Renters also tended to look first for apartments in Perth, East Perth and West Perth before then expanding out to encompass Mt Lawley, South Perth, Highgate, Subiaco, Leederville and Northbridge. This was because most renters wanted to have a direct route to work, with 86% stating the travel time to work influenced their decision when choosing an apartment.

84% also indicated that safety and security was a major influence in their renting decisions along with being able to lock up and leave, low maintenance and affordability (75% respectively).

However what was also interesting, was that while 44% had no prior experience living in an apartment, 82% would still recommend apartment living.

There is no doubt that apartment living is becoming an evolving trend for renters, but just like owner occupiers – bigger is better!

If you are keen to learn the full results of the WAAA survey (and guarantee your investment success) contact Samantha Reece on 0452 067 117. You can be assured you won’t find this level of information anywhere else!

Perth suburbs continue to perform

So PropertyESP has been developing some suburb profiles for clients, which outline capital growth, rental vacancies and rental yields plus other interesting data.

We have only just started but already Maylands and West Leederville are looking like promising inner suburbs for investors.

West Leederville has experienced 9.3% capital growth per annum for the last ten years and provides a 5.5% rental yield. This is above Perth’s average of 7.3%.

On the other hand Maylands has also experienced above average growth at 11.7% per annum over the last decade and furthermore 51% of residents in the area rent an apartment (Source ABS). The Maylands culture therefore appears to be very much in love with apartment living!

Both these locations are also undergoing a redevelopment process with the City of Cambridge in particular looking to bolster the commercial as well as residential components to create a very active West Leederville. They are also both centrally located to train and bus services.

These are locations that offer great promise – they will essentially evolve from low key areas into locations that offer a range of amenities and services, due to significant investment and the Cities propensity to trigger change.

It is these locations that offer good, above average growth and which retain their character that PropertyESP believe are the gems within Perth and hence are worth a look.

Let us know what you think! Share your favourite suburb with us!

We will continue to unearth key locations, including East Perth over the coming weeks – so stay tuned.

PropertyESP loves to research sales and property trends and then share the news with their clients. We drill down into the data to understand the why and how. We basically make sense of property!