How much for the shed???

Andrea is...talking real estate

As mentioned in the last post, housing prices over here are high due to demand. So the property market has been booming (although this is finally starting to slow). The Real Estate Institute of WA (REIWA) has just released figures for the year to March 2008.

They show that the average Perth metro house price to March '08 was $462,650.
Within the metro regions, average prices range from $340,000 in the southern inland suburbs to $1.4million in the beach-side Western suburbs and $740,000 in Perth city.

A new residential sale price record was set in October with a river-front mansion in Claremont (median house price $1.3 million) purchased for a whopping $23million! This property had previously been purchased in May ’06 for a modest $16million. Nice investment, I say!

Now to Broome, which has the 3rd highest annual increase in house price in regional WA with a growth of 28% (compare to almost 6% in Perth). Broome also has the highest median house price of regional WA at $718,000 (!). This is followed by Karratha, a booming mining town with a serious shortage of houses and accommodation in general, at $671,000.

I knew Broome was expensive, but that price surprised me.

<-- New house going up in 'Old Broome' area

REIWA says that Broome has the highest prices because it has the least amount of land for development. Yet there are still new estates being built and expanded at a ferocious pace. I have not yet found a map that has all the current roads on it. I have ditched my ’08 WA road atlas map as it was already quite out of date and getting me lost (I don’t need any help with that). It wouldn’t be so bad if they just extended and created roads, but some just no longer seem to exist or else have had their name changed. Very confusing!

There is also a lack of rental accommodation in Broome, which I discovered when looking for somewhere to live for these 3 months. Fortunately I am able (along with my dog) to lodge with another BoM employee and his family at a reasonable cost.

The few houses that are available for lease and advertised at domain.com.au are:

*A furnished (patio chairs, card table) caravan with annex (pictured) at a holiday park for $280 per week (12 month lease). It has it’s own toilet and shower (ooh luxury) and a courtyard (aka the walkway between the caravans) -->

*At the same location there is a ‘1 bed, 1 bathroom (external) unit’ (holiday cabin) for only $220 (6 month lease). Can you really include the bathroom as a feature when you have to share it with 100s of holidaymakers? I don’t think so.

*2 bed apartment in a secure complex with a pool - $320 (that's pretty good actually)

*2 bed ‘unit’ (this is unit #32, so I’m thinking they are actually apartments) in a dodgy street for $340. It does feature a smoke alarm which none of the others have mentioned, so it must be good.

*Ohh, a house! For $525 - ‘2 bed+ sleepout & pool in the LIA’. Anyone care to explain any of this to me? LIA means light industrial area as far as I am aware. So is the pool in the LIA, or is the house in the LIA and has a pool?

*Here’s a good one – 3 bed, 2 bath (one is ‘spacious’) unit with veranda and A/C for $550. It features a photo of Cable Beach park which is in front of the big resort. But the unit is actually in the old Cable Beach estate area a good 5km away.

…Actually, there are way more places than when I was looking.
The rest seem to be 3-4 bed houses ranging from $550 to $980 per week. Last time I looked, there was nothing under $550 and at least one at $1000!

The problem with my job is that the longest I will get posted somewhere is probably 3 months which makes it next to impossible to take out a lease. It’s fortunate that I am more than open to house-sharing, but this is difficult to find too for such a short period of time.
So I have been really lucky to find a bed of my own in Broome and will appreciate it despite the occasional screaming of the 4 year old.