WA employment figures
Weekly Real Estate Data
This week Perth sales increased by 5% recording 992 transactions. The increase was mainly attributable to a 21% increase in vacant land sales. However, listings again provide the point of interest. Listings increased by 1% again this week, recording 9118 properties for sale. The graph below shows listings over the past 6-months and illustrates the steep decline in December last year followed by a consistent upward trend from February to May. Michael Keil, with 30 years’ experience in the industry, has consistently stated he believes 12,000 listings is an equilibrium between buyers and sellers, so there is still a very long way to go before the market is no longer considered a “seller’s market”, but the upward trend in listings is definitely there.
Perth recorded a 0.29% increase in property prices this week. The growth is below our required average for a 20% annual increase in property prices as illustrated in the graph below, but is still very healthy growth. If we look at the rolling average in grey, it has been pretty consistent over the past two and a half months. So, if we project our current rolling average forward for the remaining four and a half months (there are four and a half months left of our 12 month analysis) Perth should experience approximately a 16% increase in property prices between 12/10/2020 and the 12/10/2021. That would be great news for those who bought around the peak of 2013/14 as they start to recover some of the losses.
Monthly Employment
WA’S latest employment figures were slightly disappointing. Our preferred measure of employment, monthly hours worked, showed a 2.7% decline for the month of April as illustrated in the graph below. However, the rest of the employment figures were a mixed bag demonstrating why we like to use monthly hours worked. For example, along with the drop in hours worked, there were 1% less employed over the month and our employment to population ratio decreased by 0.7%. However, unemployment dropped by 0.1 % and underemployment by 0.3%. The decline in hours worked may be due to the Easter and ANZAC long weekends, along with the shut down over the ANZAC weekend, so we will get a better picture with the May results.
Reproduced with permission from:
Ryan Brierty,
in house economist from Michael Keil @ michaelkeil.com