Property analysts say Western Australia’s snap five-day lockdown is likely to have little impact on the state’s recovering real estate market with Perth showing impressive results unseen since 2013.
On Sunday, WA Premier Mark McGowan announced a hard lockdown for the Perth metropolitan area and Peel and South-West regions until Friday after a hotel quarantine security guard tested positive to COVID-19, with fears it could be the highly infectious UK strain of the virus.
Nerida Conisbee, chief economist at realestate.com.au, said while the five-day lockdown was an inconvenience for Western Australians, she did not believe it would have a significant effect on WA’s property market.
“It’s not the end of the world,” she said. “It is only five days and won’t have a huge impact on the property market. I think the bigger issue for WA is around border closures. That is a bit more problematic in terms of tourism, in particular.”
Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn, Perth has shown strong confidence with a record low number of sales listings putting upwards pressure on prices, multiple offers to residential sellers and strong interest from first-home buyers.
A limited supply of available rentals has encouraged huge rental price growth as tenants grapple to secure properties.
Real Estate Institute of WA president Damian Collins agreed the lockdown was unlikely to cause a detrimental impact on the local property market.
“This is a short, tiny, little blip in the fast-recovering market and I don’t think it will really have any effect at all,” Mr Collins said.
“The Perth market is running at the fastest growth rate in the country. In the short-term, I suspect this week’s home opens are likely to be on the banned list as it’s not one of the four reasons you’re allowed to leave home…but that will have negligible impact. Clearly, if it really exploded and went into 30, 40, 50 cases and there was lockdown for a month or two months it would be a different story, but right now I think it will have a negligible impact.”
Under the lockdown, people in Perth, Peel and South-West regions can only leave their homes to shop for food, medication and essential items; or attend medical appointments. They can leave their homes to exercise for up to an hour a day with one other person, but must wear a face mask. People can go to work if they cannot work remotely.
Ms Conisbee said Perth had been more resistant to the fallout of COVID-19 than other Australian property markets – largely due to the successes of the local mining and agricultural sectors, despite a slowing global economy.
Source: realestate.com.au