Property Sales Direct

The nationwide slowdown of the property market is being felt in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, according to local real estate agents and finance brokers.

A recent survey of 2331 people by Coredata and news.com.au found two thirds of Australians are unlikely to buy property in the current market.

Of those who do own homes, 76 per cent they were currently finding it more difficult to make their repayment than before the seven consecutive rises and one in five said they were using more than half their income on home loan repayments.

And Fyson Strachan and Associates The Professionals principal Chris Fyson there had been a noticeable slow down in the local property market.

“When you have uncertainty about the future of interest rates people tend to stop and put their hands in their pockets and don’t do anything,” Mr Fyson said.

But Mr Fyson said the situation was not likely to last for long and the Goldfields market was in a good position to continue strongly once initial fear over rate rises subsided.

“Kalgoorlie is actually behind much of the State’s property market,” he said.

“We haven’t had the same extreme price spikes that other places have experienced and because of that we don’t tend to get the extreme drops.”

Accounting and business advisory network Moore Stephens associate director Geoff Dart said it was not just rising interest rates but also the increasing cost of living expenses such as health, education and petrol that were behind the cool down on demand for property.

“As such, pressure on housing stock has also fallen; people have battened down the hatches and the number of home loans has fallen as a consequence,” Mr Dart said.

“I expect we will continue to see downward pressure over the coming year.”

But local sellers are not cottoning on to the trend, with many setting unrealistic prices for their property.

The Mortgage Gallery franchise manager Daniel Bowler said while there was not a significant drop-off in prices, sellers did need to adjust their expectations.

“Some people’s estimates as to what their house is worth are a bit over the top,” Mr Bowler said.

“We have seen a drop off in the amount of people buying and with uncertainty over interest rate rises people are being more cautious.”

Mr Fyson said their needed to be a repositioning of people’s expectations because many sellers were focusing on the strong market of late last year and were not taking into account the current slow down.

“But it is always the case that buyers will think things are too expensive and sellers will think things are too cheap,” Mr Fyson said.

ZOE RUDDER

The West Australian