WA regional rents keep falling

Western Australia’s regional rental market was the weakest performer in the country in the last three months of 2015, with the Pilbara area taking a large share of the blame.

The median rent for houses in regional WA fell 2.6 per cent in the December quarter to $370 a week, while the median rent for units fell 3 per cent to $320, according to the latest CoreLogic RP Data.

WA was the weakest performer across regional Australia over the December quarter.

The figures also showed a 7.5 per cent fall in the median house rent for 2015, while the unit market fell 8.6 per cent compared with 2014.

“Rental rates continued to fall over the final quarter of 2015 in regional WA, signifying the third consecutive quarter for declining rents for houses and the second consecutive quarter of falls across regional WA’s unit market after remaining flat for most of the first half of the year,” CoreLogic said in a statement.

“For both houses and units, the Pilbara region was the weakest performer over the final quarter of 2015.”

Pilbara house rents fell 9.1 per cent over the December quarter to $500/week, a moderate improvement from a 16.7 per cent fall over the September quarter.

House rents fell 44.4 per cent in the Pilbara during 2015, while unit rents fell 36.4 per cent to $350/week.

“Across each individual stock type, all segments of regional WA’s rental market saw rents fall over the final three months of 2015,” CoreLogic said.

“For houses, the greatest falls were across houses with five or more bedrooms (down 7.4 per cent), while for units, one bedroom advertisements show rental rates fell 8.5 per cent from $295 to $270 per week.

“The latest fall for one bedroom unites brings rents for this product type down 18.2 per cent relative to December 2014.”

The southern eastern region of WA experienced the highest growth in house rents in the December quarter, up 3.1 per cent to $330/week, while rents in the units market were unchanged across three regions during the final quarter of the year.