WA building hotspots dominated by outer suburbs

Perth City was the only inner city area to be classed as a building hotspot in Western Australia, with most building approvals occurring in the outer suburbs, according to a Housing Industry Association report.

The Population and Housing Hotspot report named Forrestdale-Harrisdale-Piara Waters, Baldivis, Ellenbrook and Perth City as the state’s building hotspots.

Perth City had the highest dollar figure for building approvals ($195.6 million) and the lowest population growth (1.9 per cent).

Ellenbrook had $155.7 million worth of approvals and had a 5.3 per cent increase in population.

Forrestdale-Harrisdale-Piara Waters had the largest population growth of 9.5 per cent and $127.5 million in residential building approvals and Baldivis had the second largest growth in population at 6.2 per cent and $106.7 million in approvals.

Areas qualified as hotspots if they had more than $100 million in residential building approvals in 2017/18.

There were four hotspots in WA this financial year compared with six last year and no new areas were included.

In the report, the Housing Industry Association said building activity in WA remained in a deep downturn but the poor state of the market would not be sustained as employment and population growth have started to return.

WA’s population increased by 20,999 in 2017/18 and it was one of the only states where natural population growth (19,490) considerably outplaced the net migration from overseas (12,809).

The report comes a few weeks after Australian Bureau of Statistics data revealed outer suburbs including Alkimos, Baldivis and Ellenbrook were continuing to account for more of the growth while inner suburbs like Mosman Park and Subiaco were shrinking.

The suburbs with the most renovation included Mosman Park-Peppermint Grove where $20.8 million worth of approvals for alterations and additions were accepted, followed by Nedlands-Dalkeith-Crawley ($15.6 million) and the Busselton region ($15.2 million).