Land Sales Going Up; WA faces housing problems

Western Australia’s economic success have caused a few problems for the state and recently, a new problem surfaced amidst WA’s recent oil discovery. Residential land sales have triggered a new headache as the Housing Industry Association recent Residential Land Sales report shows that Western Australia only has 23.5 % of remaining residential land. Despite the reversed decline of lot sales in Perth for the last quarter of June, WA is struggling to provide good residential homes for its increasing migrant population. Within the last six months, residential lot sales in Perth have gone down to 32% while the median residential land value was $235,000, which was 2.2% down within a span of 12 months ago. In March 2006, the median residential land value for Perth was around $267,000.

The report further states that recent mining and resources boom have made land valuable in Perth that there is difficulty in purchasing residential lands for immigrants in Australia, who have decided to settle in in Western Australia because of the great job opportunities.  “Life in Western Australia’s residential land would be a lot easier if there was a steady supply of affordable residential land.” The report suggests further. It is vital that the new workers and immigrants in WA have access to affordable residential land.

Nationally, land sales increased within 18% over the June quarter but it still remained 25% lower than last year’s June quarter and was 51% lower  than the June 2004 quarter. HIA chief economist Harley Dale stated that the profile for residential land sales are still down but has high hopes that a turnaround for new housing may start in March 2012. However, with the recent boom within the mining and resources sector and with the handsome pay offered for the skilled migrants, most of the migrants are willing to pay the price for residential lots in Western Australia. With new projects going underway, there is still a good chance that Western Australia can cope up with its land problems.

While the land sales might be a headache, there is still a big possibility that immigrants in Australia who were coming from several countries might be able to afford the land price hike, provided that sufficient and high paying jobs in Australia are offered to them.