Four-year low for residential lots

The number of residential lots created in November in Western Australia was the lowest monthly result in nearly four years, with state government agency Landgate also recording its lowest levels of monthly activity since the beginning of this year across every type of land transaction.

Over the month of November, the total number of documents lodged with Landgate was down 4.1 per cent on the previous month.

But the total number of lots created in November was down 52.2 per cent on October, to 851.

At the same time last year, 1,503 subdivision lots were created in November, while the 851 subdivisional lots created this November was the lowest result since 647 were built in January 2012.

The highest number of subdivision lots created in a calendar month since 2007-2008, the earliest statistics available from Landgate, was 2,965, in April 2014.

More than 1,000 strata lots created during November – a 22.6 per cent drop on October; but that level was still 13 per cent higher than the same time last year.

Landgate chief executive Mike Bradford maintained that it was typical for activity to decline in the second last month of the year.

“Overall activity has declined between October and December for the past four years and it traditionally picks back up in December,” he said.

“This year we saw a marginal drop of 4 per cent between the months and we also saw some positive signs in the market for strata.

“The 1,039 new strata lots created for the month also represented a significantly higher figure than the month’s three-year average of 857.”