Pain and gain: Perth’s biggest property winners and losers revealed

Perth has had the greatest turnaround in profitability of any capital city market in the past five years with fresh data showing almost every home sale turned a profit.

While this was only the third-highest of the capital cities behind Brisbane and Adelaide, the 97 per cent result in the September 2024 quarter is up from 56 per cent in the same period in 2019.

2024 has proved a strong year for sales in Perth.Credit: Getty Images

CoreLogic’s latest Pain & Gain report for the September quarter analysed tens of thousands of resales over the period, showing the median nominal gain in Perth reached a high of $290,000. The series started in the mid-1990s.

The median loss from resale was steady on the previous quarter at $50,000 in Perth with the median hold period 9.9 years. Melbourne was also the only capital city market to see an increase in the rate of loss-making sales.

All properties sold in the City of Kalamunda, Town of Mosman Park, City of Nedlands and City of South Perth turned a profit when sold, on average pocketing between $266,500 and $360,000.

The highest percentage of loss-making sales were the City of Rockingham with a quarter of properties selling at an average loss of $35,000. Around 10 per cent of properties sold at a loss in the local government areas of Claremont and East Fremantle, with the latter recording an average loss of $329,500.

CoreLogic head of research Eliza Owen said while growth in Perth home values had been slowing on a quarterly basis, value uplift across the city was still strong in the three months to November, at 3 per cent.

“For this reason, Perth may be close to claiming the top spot for profit-making resales across the capital cities, as affordability pressures slow market conditions across Adelaide and Brisbane in the near term,” she said.

“That being said, there are still clearly pockets of pain where home sellers need to offload their property in spite of weak market conditions, or values remaining substantially below previous record highs.”

The biggest increase in profitability nationally was in Bunbury where the rate of loss-making sales dwindled from 9.1 per cent at the start of rate hikes, to just 2.5 per cent in the September quarter of 2024.

Owen said houses continued to deliver superior resale results in the September quarter. However, Perth had the biggest quarterly decline in the rate of loss-making unit resales across the capital cities. The rate of loss-making unit sales almost halved from 11.6 per cent to 6.4 per cent.

“The decline in loss-making unit sales was accompanied by a 5.1 per cent lift in unit values,” she said.

“Interestingly, growth in Perth unit values had also overtaken the rise in house values at this point in the cycle, where houses rose 3.7 per cent in the three months to September.”

Regional WA units were still associated with the longest hold periods for loss-making resales, at 15.6 years.

Owen said that suggested an initial purchase date in late 2008 /early 2009, which marked an enormous economic and property market uplift in WA associated with the rise of the Chinese economy and an iron ore boom.

As of November 2024, unit values in regional WA were still more than 20 per cent below the record high of August 2008.

MCG Quantity Surveyors managing director Mike Mortlock said in 2025 Perth was expected to continue outperforming national averages, although an anticipated increase in listing volumes might temper the feverish buyer activity observed recently.

“The gold-rush mentality driving investors into already overheated markets, such as Perth, could leave a lasting imprint,” he said.

“Many investors are now exploring markets like Melbourne and Darwin in search of the next big opportunity.

“While some of these markets still offer favourable income-to-asset price ratios, there is a risk of prolonged stagnation or even decline in others.”

Nationally, the median capital city house value has now surpassed $1 million.