THERE are promising signs that the Western Australian property market is still going strong, according to an Elders first quarter rural property update released last week.
The one year rolling median price per hectare increased by 6.1 per cent in the first quarter to $6934 per hectare, the 10th consecutive quarter of growth.
Quarter-on-quarter, the number of property transactions increased by 20.6pc to 234.
However, the rolling transaction volume for the past year decreased by 7.4pc to 822, reinforcing a trend of tight supply.
According to PropTrack's June listings report, conditions remain tough for buyers in regional WA, with the total stock of properties available for sale down more than 40pc compared to pre-pandemic levels.
However, new listings in regional WA surged in May off a quieter April, up 20.3pc month-on-month.
Similarly, the value traded increased by 41.5pc to $446.5 million.
Property Yields real estate agent Brett Nazzari said the narrative that the property market was slowing down might be true over east, but there was no evidence of that yet in WA.
"What you keep often reading and seeing in the headlines in the media is that property prices are dropping," Mr Nazzari said.
"They are coming down in the Eastern States, definitely.
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"I think we are still going pretty well over here in Perth, especially in the housing sector."
Nutrien Harcourts WA real estate manager west region, Darren Tapscott said it was a reasonable assumption that the market might slow down, but "there is no evidence to suggest that is actually happening in the marketplace on completed transactions as of today".
"We've had some pretty good results even in the past day or so, which suggests that the market is still very strong," Mr Tapscott said.
"It's interesting given the level of value we have, which is the highest I've seen over my career for 25 to 30 years.
"It's not showing any signs of backing off yet."
Mr Nazzari said he believed the WA property market was going to continue growing steadily.
"I think we are going to see some growth for a while in WA, mainly for the fact that we historically used to be fourth in the median price of a property across Australia, and we dropped to last not long ago," Mr Nazzari said.
"Places that have done nothing for years, such as Tasmania and the Northern Territory, even Adelaide to a certain extent, are priced over us.
"To get back to historically fourth position, we need to have a median house price of about $800,000, at the moment we are running at about $550,000."
It is hard to tell where in the economic cycle the property market is, as real estate agents were still selling a high quantity of properties.
"It's extremely difficult to pick even if we've peaked to be honest,'' Mr Tapscott said.
"Anecdotally there seems to be some pretty strong results coming through, which suggests that the market at the very least is at a similar level to what it was earlier this year.
"And in some instances, I can say it has gone up again."
The economy is looking promising, with a low unemployment rate and high investor interest from interstate.
"I think we are looking at steady growth with the unemployment rate being the way that it is, there are so many jobs here," Mr Nazzari said.
"And investors from the Eastern States might return.
"The boom and bust markets are never great, but I think we might see something a bit steadier, which will be great."
Both Mr Tapscott and Mr Nazzari agreed that interest rates were not going to have a massive impact on slowing down the rural market.
"It will affect certain parts of the market, and that's what it's designed to do, it's designed to slow the market down," Mr Nazzari said.
"There are people who have committed to buying a property and that hurts them.
"I don't think it's going to have too much impact on the top end of the market, it's mainly the medium to bottom end."
Mr Tapscott agreed, stating prices will be primarily dictated by the weather and commodity prices.
