Western Australia’s property industry is the second-most positive in the country when it comes to assessing the impact of COVID-19, according to a recent survey.
Western Australia’s property industry is the second-most positive in the country when it comes to assessing the impact of COVID-19, according to a recent survey.
The Property Council of Australia’s latest survey revealed WA property industry participants expected business to improve over the next three months, with only a handful of respondents believing the market would get worse.
The survey was conducted between June and July 2020, revealing WA confidence rose to 82 points for the September quarter, up from 63 points in June. The national confidence score rose to 76 points from 62 points previously, with a score of 100 considered neutral.
The survey reflected concerns about the impact of the pandemic on forward works, staffing levels and national and state economic growth.
Australia-wide, 45 per cent of survey respondents said their business had relied on the JobKeeper program and 55 per cent said the federal government should extend the September 27 cut-off date.
In WA, expectations for capital growth were negative across all sectors.
The September quarter survey revealed elevated levels of concern about commercial office and residential capital growth, which had deteriorated since June. However, WA respondents reported the strongest outlook for residential construction activity over the next 12 months indicating that federal and state government incentives for housing are driving confidence levels.
Property Council of Australia WA Division executive director Sandra Brewer said the impact of the federal government’s HomeBuilder and the state government’s Building Bonus was likely to materialise in the next quarterly survey.
“I suspect the full benefit to be delivered by the WA government’s $20,000 Building Bonus – on top of the Federal Government’s $25,000 HomeBuilder – will underpin an improvement in December quarter sentiment,” Ms Brewer said.
“The response of Premier Mark McGowan’s state government to the crisis has been decisive and effective, ensuring the WA property industry is best placed to recover and retain jobs,” Ms Brewer said.
“Further policy reform is important to eliminate obstacles to job-generating projects. The state recovery effort is far from over and we look forward to further planning reform and work to extract the best possible economic outcome from a city deal for Perth.”
Property industry respondents cited economic management, cities and infrastructure delivery, tax reform and housing supply and affordability as the four most critical federal government issues.
For state governments, the most critical issues highlighted were property taxes and charges, planning and regulation reform, housing supply and affordability, followed by development around transport nodes and city centres.
