This apartment boasts amazing views of the Swan. So why has it been on the market for 1268 days?

It has a view to die for, with a vista stretching across the wide waters of the Swan River.

Yet this one-bedroom unit along Melville Parade in South Perth listed at $319,000 has been on the market since August 2019.

The 1960s apartment was also listed in 2015 where it spent 1312 days on the market.

It is one of many inner city one-bedroom units waiting hundreds of days and, in some cases, more than a 1000 days to sell despite Perth’s strong property market.

Other one-bedroom apartments in the sub-$300,000 price bracket along Mounts Bay Road have been on the market for a year and a half.

The problem with these otherwise desirable apartments is that they have no car bays.

Perth property expert Trent Fleskens said the unfortunate outcome of developing the world’s most sprawling city is that even a world-class transport system can’t mitigate the need to own a car.

“Perth’s fickle and discerning property market puts a premium on the number of car bays a property controls,” he said.

“Whether a house, unit, or apartment, a property with more car bays will always sell for more.“

Fleskens said even in the CBD, where the walk-score should be at its highest, evidence shows that apartments with no car bays are the hardest to sell and the least valuable.

Even in Perth’s CBD apartment owners want a car space.Credit: WA Tourism

“Whilst we all love the idea of living in a quaint town where everything is accessible by bike or walking, that just isn’t the case in Perth,” he said.

“We aren’t Europe, where public transport can actually be quicker than driving from home to the shops, and we will probably never be.”

Australian Apartment Advocacy director Sam Reece said a car parking survey of residents living in an apartment revealed more than half would be prepared to pay an additional $25,000 for another car bay.

Around 85 per cent said they would not be prepared to forgo a car bay if they could save $25,000.

Australian Apartment Advocacy director Samantha Reece: “The biggest bugbear ... is the lack of visitor parking.”

“The biggest bugbear in our research is a lack of visitor parking,” she said.

“When you sell an apartment to a couple with two cars one will park in the visitor bays.“

Reece said there needed to be a more circular approach to public transport in Perth as seen in Sydney and Melbourne.

“Metronet will improve connectivity, but in WA the only way we can get away from the car is if the infrastructure is there,” she said.

“We can’t expect people to change their behaviour if they don’t have other options available to them.”

Fleskens said state planning policy looks to limit the number of car bays in developments to a maximum of two. But this he said is shortsighted.

“If we want to move our society to a higher-density style of living, where families are happy to trade a house and land for a larger apartment, then we need to cater for families who will invariably have two to four cars depending on the age of the children,” he said.

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