WESTERN Australia is officially experiencing a housing glut, new research says, with home values forecast to dip 5 to 10 per cent over the course of the next two years.
Property analysts SQM Research’s analysis of residential listings showed a 4.6 per cent jump in WA during the past month, taking the yearly increase to 74.8 per cent. The figures show there were 17,586 houses for sale in WA in April, up from 16,899 in March.
In April 2010, there were just 9,717 houses on the market.
Nationally, online residential listings rose by 3.9 per cent during April to 370,638, for a 68.7 per cent increase when compared to the same month in 2010.
“What is most noteworthy about these figures is obviously the immense increase in stock from April 2010 to April 2011,” SQM said. “This can be attributed to the month of April being the low point in the stock on market cycle for 2010.”
SQM said the increasing supply of stock was sufficient evidence a housing glut had officially set in, and as stock levels continued to increase, house prices would fall.
It predicted that in most capital cities there would be a 5 to 10 per cent decline in house prices over the next two years.
