Managing properties in Western Australia can be more difficult than other states thanks to the volatility of its “transient population”, says the Real Estate Institute of NSW president.
Speaking to Residential Property Manager, REINSW president Malcolm Gunning said Western Australia is a smaller and more unique market.
“There is a lot of internationally-owned property in WA, and a lot of them are miners who buy second properties,” he said.
“Rents tend to be high and there tends to be a bit of a transient population – so they are not quite as easy to manage as Sydney – it is a bit more of a volatile market.”
Real Estate of Western Australia president David Airey said this is a “big generalisation”.
“I think if we divided that up and said, in WA’s north west region in big towns like Karratha and some of the smaller centres surrounding that, there is certainly a much more transient population, but the Perth metropolitan area is not affected by that to any extent,” he told Residential Property Manager.
“It is more confined to the mining regions.
“It just means there is a greater turnover of tenants rather than more difficulty – there is a greater cost involved.
“I haven’t heard of or noticed anything more difficult about the Perth metro area in respect to that; certainly fly-in, fly-out workers do account for a significant proportion of tenants – a lot of them prefer to rent – but I don’t think it has created any more difficulties than we have been used to,” he added.