‘What am I going to buy if I sell?’: The dilemma facing home sellers in Perth this spring

Perth’s property market is experiencing a catch-22, with owners reluctant to sell despite strong buyer demand due to concerns they won’t find a home to buy themselves.

“It’s a problem for a lot of people,” Peard Real Estate agent Pauline Lyon said. “They actually need something to go to and don’t want to be homeless.”

Home prices in the Western Australian capital increased by 9.2% to a median of $865,000 in the year to August, PropTrack data showed.

Though Darwin and Brisbane saw slightly stronger year-on-year increases, Perth was a very close third, followed by Adelaide.

Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart recorded much smaller year-on-year increases of between 1.4% and 3.7%.

Low stock and high demand have continued to fuel the market, with the number of listings dropping in the past five months, The Agency partner Rash Dhanjal said.

Perth suburbs with the fastest growing house prices 

“There’s just not a lot of stock out there at the moment, but the interesting thing is you’re still selling 800 to 850 properties a week – regardless of the low stock.”

Ms Lyon said it has meant many owners who may have been tempted to sell and take advantage of strong capital gains, were instead holding on for fear of being left out in the cold.

She said for those who have listed their homes recently, settlement terms have become more important than ever.

“As well as estate agents, we have to now not only negotiate price but negotiate settlement terms of buyers to suit the seller’s needs,” she said.

“They are long settlements but at the end of the day there are buyers out there that will accommodate that.”

Haiven Property director Sean Hughes said he understood the reluctance many had when it came to listing their home for sale.

Perth suburbs with the fastest growing unit prices 

“Being out of the market at the moment is a very risky position to be in,” Mr Hughes said.

“There’s a lot of potential sellers that we’re dealing with at the moment who say ‘yeah I’ll sell not a problem but soon as I find somewhere’ and ‘what am I gonna buy?’”

He said sellers should consider bridging finance, or be willing to negotiate settlement to suit them.

“I think that they genuinely have to give some consideration to putting their house on the market with a long settlement or a rent back agreement – and they can dictate the terms because it is a sellers’ market.”

Because auctions are not popular in Perth, long settlements with conditions were common, however Ms Lyon admitted it can cause a knock-on effect for sellers waiting for buyers to sell their own home.

“You might have one subject to sale and the rest of subject to settlement, but yes, you will have the lot in a chain and it gets quite messy down the chain,” she said.

“We have had four or five properties in a chain and we’ve had one person at the top end hold everything up, so it’s been a bit of a nightmare.

“But more often than not a lot of the buyers now are putting themselves in positions where they’ve sold up and moved in with mum and dad so that they can be negotiable on the settlement terms.”

Mr Dhanjal said though spring typically meant more properties were listed for sale, any boost would not be enough to achieve a “balanced market”.

“A lot of people say a balanced market is 11,000 properties in the market so we’re way off that and we’re not probably not going to get there for a while,” he said.

For those looking to buy, Mr Hughes said waiting for “Mr Right or Mr Perfect” was not a wise strategy.

“You could be waiting a long time and you could just outthink yourself out of $300,000 or $500,000 in growth,” he said.

“Be comfortable or satisfied with ticking seven or eight out of your 10 boxes. Stop looking for 10 out of 10 boxes because they’re just not existing in the current climate.”

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