16 January 2021
Author: REIWA President Damian Collins
With people taking long deserving holidays or opting to
spend time with family during the festive season, December has traditionally
been known as one of the slower months to sell your property with many deciding
not to list their property until the end of January.
In 2020, this has not been the case and we have started to
see a different trend emerge with sales activity in December increasing 42.5
per cent compared to the previous year.
Sales activity
If we take a closer look at what has been sold during the
month compared to December 2019, there was a 50.5 per cent increase in house sales activity, units saw a 51
per cent increase and land experienced a 4.3 per cent decrease in sales – which
is not unusual considering the significant increase in land sales we saw during
the middle of 2020 due to the various government grants available, which
brought forward a lot of demand to earlier in the year.
Top suburbs for sales activity growth
Banksia Grove led the top suburbs by sales activity growth
in December when compared with November, with a 157 per cent increase and a
median sale price of $371,000.
This was closely followed by Fremantle which had
a 100 per cent increase and a median of $767,500 and Erskine with a 38 per cent
increase and a median of $402,500.
Rounding out the top five were Yanchep (30 per cent
increase in sales activity growth) and Mount Hawthorn (29 per cent).
Sales listings
While activity has picked up, listings for sale in December
continued to decrease and when compared to the year prior were 19.4 per cent
lower. Due to this, the price rises we have seen are likely to continue into
2021.
Top growth suburbs for median price
The suburbs to see the largest increase in median sale
price in December were Kelmscott which experienced a 6.2 per cent increase to
$375,000, followed by Yokine with a 4.8 per cent increase to $650,000, Wellard
increasing four per cent to $399,500, Girrawheen which also increased four per
cent to $310,000 and Applecross with a 3.4 per cent increase to $1.21 million.
Perth remains very favourable for buyers and investors,
however with REIWA expecting Perth’s median price to grow between six and 10
per cent in the 2021 calendar year, I would advise those who are thinking about
purchasing their first home, trading up or investing, to get in contact with
your local REIWA agent before prices inevitably rise further.
For a detailed breakdown of how the property market performed over the past week, view our Perth Market Snapshot graph.