A buyer could effectively snap up three houses in Perth's most affordable inner-city suburb for the price of one home in its Sydney equivalent
Perth remains one of the most affordable places in Australia to buy a house. That’s especially evident when comparing the most affordable suburbs within 10 kilometres of the Perth CBD to their counterparts in Sydney and Melbourne.
New data from CoreLogic shows that the least expensive suburb within 10 kilometres of the Melbourne CBD is Maidstone, with a median house price of $922,681. In Sydney, the most affordable suburb within 10 kilometres of the CBD is Arncliffe, with a median house price of $1.455 million.
In contrast, the most affordable suburb within 10 kilometres of the Perth CBD is Westminster, where the median house price is just $404,577.
“There are plenty of affordable options close to the city in Perth, whereas in places like Sydney and Melbourne you’d likely need to spend over a million dollars to get your foot in the door close to the city,” said Damian Collins, president of the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia.
According to CoreLogic data, a home buyer could effectively buy 3.5 houses in Westminster for the cost of just one in Arncliffe.
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Perth remains the country’s most affordable capital city, according to REIWA. Perth’s median house price in the June quarter was $515,000 – the lowest median of any capital city in Australia and 43.7% lower than the national average. In contrast, the median house prices in Sydney and Melbourne were $1.41 million and $1.01 million, respectively.
“There is a significant difference between what is considered ‘affordable’ in Sydney and Melbourne, versus the equivalent in Perth,” Collins said. “A million dollars goes a long way in our local property market, whereas on the east coast, you’ll most likely have to fork out close to a million dollars for your first home – which is why prospective buyers are finding it increasingly difficult to get on the property ladder in these cities. We are very lucky that WA housing is still so affordable and that, even amidst a market recovery, homeownership remains within reach for so many West Australians.”
