Perth’s inner city could face a catastrophic rental crisis in 18 months unless urgent measures are taken to boost housing supply, a property expert warns.
Limnios Property Group managing director James Limnios said currently properties advertised to rent in the city attracted huge numbers of people who were finding it difficult to find somewhere to live.
He said the Edith Cowan University city campus, which opens in January 2026, would make the problem worse.
Perth’s inner-city suburbs will not be able to cope with increased demand for rentals when the new ECU campus opens, says James Limnios.
Property Council research showed the City of Perth already has the highest concentration of rental properties in Perth, with 14.4 per cent taken up by those on temporary student visas.
“Even these students are finding a near impossible task in finding a rental home in the current inner-city rental market,” Limnios said.
“Currently, for every rental property we advertise for rent in the inner city we have to limit the number of people attending home viewings because we would be swamped by attendees.
“Many of these rental applications already include students and key employees such as nurses and police/fire workers who cannot find a home.”
The latest ABS building approvals figures showed that, during the first eight months of this financial year, there were zero building approvals for homes in Northbridge and Highgate, and just three in East Perth.
Limnios said the construction of new apartment developments had ground to a standstill and unused or derelict development sites were becoming a public eyesore.
“Years of inaction by all levels of government will come home to roost when thousands of overseas students arrive in Perth to attend the ECU city campus only to find that they will be effectively homeless because there is nowhere to stay,” he said.
“What should be a glorious opportunity to showcase our city to world could instead become international embarrassment and this unfortunate outcome will damage our international reputation which we have worked so hard to build up.”
However, WA Housing Minister John Carey said the majority of those who would attend the new ECU campus were existing staff and students, whose courses would transfer from the Mount Lawley and Joondalup campuses.
“Currently, we are seeing a boom in student accommodation in the city, with two major projects receiving development approval on Wellington Street,” he said.
“These will provide accommodation to more than 1300 students across the two private developments.
“In March this year, I also joined representatives from Exal Group to turn the sod on a purpose-built student accommodation project in Waterford, which will also provide accommodation for more than 900 students, upon completion.”
The Switch opened the doors to renters in 2022 for its first project in Australia, a $70 million co-living concept in a 39-storey skyscraper along Wellington Street in the heart of the CBD.Credit: The Switch
Carey added construction of the Perth Hub on Wellington Street by the Far East Consortium was well under way and would provide hundreds of new residential units.
He said the state government would also shortly release to market the last remaining lots of the Perth City Link, which would prioritise more housing and student accommodation.
The federal government has announced that an additional $11 billion will be invested in housing as part of this week’s budget and a requirement that universities increase the supply of purpose-built student accommodation.
Student Accommodation Council executive director Torie Brown said the key to maintaining a prosperous university sector lay in the ability to house students in accommodation that suited their needs, was safe and conveniently located.
“And we know the fastest way for universities to add the student accommodation they need is to partner with the private sector,” she said.
The council said international students constituted about 4 per cent of Australia’s rental market, and the projected 7770 new beds in purpose-built student accommodation developments due to come online by 2026 was not enough to alleviate demand in the private rental market.
An ECU spokeswoman said affordable and attainable student accommodation was an important factor for international students in choosing WA.
“ECU is working collaboratively with the WA government, Study Perth and other WA universities to attract and support new private sector purpose-built student accommodation, of which there are two recently approved projects in the Perth CBD bringing many more hundreds of beds,” she said.
Limnios said one way to quickly bring new housing supply onto the market without the cost and time delay of building new development was to aggressively repurpose empty C and D-grade office and commercial buildings in the inner city for residential accommodation.
The City of Perth has established incentives for residential developers and buyers to accelerate student housing, build-to-rent and build-to-sell development opportunities in the inner city.
“The City of Perth is leading the way on putting Perth first with developers, investors and buyers through a range of rates and fee incentives,” Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas said.
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