01 Nov Perth Property Sales Surge as Listings Tighten: Implications for Finance and Investment
Recent market data from Perth reveals a striking dynamic: transaction volumes are rising even as property supply diminishes. This combination intensifies competition, tightens margins, and amplifies both opportunity and risk for investors, developers, and financiers. Understanding where Perth’s market sits today—and how financing structures can respond—is essential for parties seeking to capitalise on this momentum.
Market Snapshot: Sales Up, Listings Down
According to the latest BrokerNews report, during the week ending 25 May 2025, Perth recorded 1,017 property sales, marking a 10.8 % increase week-on-week. House sales alone rose 10.4 %, unit sales up 9.8 %, and land transactions jumped 19 %.
Simultaneously, the pool of available listings shrank. Total properties for sale in Perth fell 4.2 % within the week, with house listings dropping 6.4 %. While stock levels remain higher than a year ago, they are now 32.2 % lower than twelve months earlier.
On the rental front, leasing activity also surged—680 properties were leased in the week, a 12.6 % lift on the prior week and nearly 48 % increase over four weeks.
These numbers reflect an underlying structural shift: demand is accelerating while supply is contracting.
Drivers Behind the Tightening
Several key forces are fuelling this supply-demand divergence:
- Owner-occupiers holding back: Some homeowners delay listing because they can’t find a suitable property themselves, or expect further price rises.
- Interstate investor inflows: Perth’s relative affordability and yield potential continue to attract capital from the east coast, increasing bidding pressure.
- Construction lag and approvals bottlenecks: New dwellings, though entering the pipeline, are subject to lead times, regulatory foreshortening, and cost escalations, limiting near-term supply relief.
- Rapid leasing turnover: Low vacancy and quick tenant absorption reduce holding times, making rental stock scarce.
The combined effect is a rising “fear of missing out” among buyers—and upward pressure on prices and yields. In fact, REIWA has projected a 10% rise in house prices for 2025, with unit prices projected to grow even faster.
Meanwhile, independent reporting indicates that the median Perth house price reached $865,000 as of August 2025, up 9.2 % over 12 months.
What This Means for Property Finance
In a market where sales are rising and supply tightening, particular considerations emerge for property finance strategies:
- Speed and readiness matter
With listings fleeting and buyer competition intense, finance solutions that are pre-arranged, streamlined, and responsive carry a premium. Delays in approval processes may result in missing opportunities. - Strong stress and buffer provisions
Given supply constraints, pricing may push beyond typical underwriting benchmarks. Lenders and borrowers must stress test more aggressively across interest rate scenarios, reduced rental yields, or longer holding periods. - Equity and servicing flexibility
As purchase prices escalate, having access to additional equity, bridging facilities, or flexible repayment arrangements helps manage margin compression and liquidity risk. - Phased funding and drawdown alignment
For property developments or staged acquisitions, aligning finance drawdowns with pre-sales, lease-up, or construction milestones moderates exposure as supply constraints evolve. - Exit strategy and refinancing optionality
Because the supply bottleneck may delay resale or refinancing, structuring finance with options—such as extension clauses, refinance pathways, or early exit provisions—is prudent. - Localised suburb risk assessment
Macro conditions are important, but the divergence in supply and demand is uneven across Perth. Some suburbs experience more acute shortages or activity than others. Finance structuring should incorporate granular suburb-level vacancy, listing, and demand indicators.
Suburb Activity Highlights
BrokerNews’ data points to suburbs such as Baldivis (25 sales), Claremont (highest price sale), and Pinjarra (lower entry sale) as showing strong movement in recent weeks.
Furthermore, leasing hotspots included Baldivis, East Perth, Perth CBD, Scarborough, and Maylands—suggesting that both inner and intermediate suburbs are registering high rental demand.
Other local reports corroborate this trend. For instance, Holdsworth’s market update for July 2025 noted that house sales leapt 9.1%, while listings fell 5.8%.
Over time, premium suburbs with constrained supply are seeing price escalations, while growth corridors are absorbing investor and owner-occupier demand more heavily.
Strategic Positioning: How Property Finance Invest Can Support
Against this backdrop, a finance intermediary must be proactive, agile, and deeply informed. The following are central pillars of such an approach:
- Pre-approval readiness and execution speed: Ensuring clients have approvals lined up allows them to act when the right listing appears.
- Tailored structural solutions: Offering bridging, interest-only periods, staged funding, or repayment flexibility to navigate competitive bidding conditions.
- Risk modelling and scenario analysis: Running downside scenarios on rental yields, vacancy periods, cost escalation, and delayed exits to understand exposure.
- Local market intelligence integration: Tracking suburb listing flux, leasing activity, and pricing trends ensures finance proposals match micro conditions, not just macro forecasts.
- Exit and liquidity planning: Embedding options for refinance, early exit, or equity access to manage downside risk if market conditions shift.
- Continuous monitoring and adaptation: As stock levels, policy settings, and macro variables evolve, finance models must be updated to retain relevance.
Risks and Mitigants
While Perth’s market presents significant upside, it also comes with caveats:
- Rising prices may push affordability ceilings, which can temper demand.
- Overheating markets may attract policy or regulatory intervention (e.g. stamp duty, foreign investment limits).
- Construction supply rises may begin to loosen the supply squeeze, especially in outer growth corridors.
- Macro shocks (interest rate shocks, economic downturns) remain latent threats.
Mitigating these risks requires maintaining conservative buffers, diversifying across assets or suburbs, and structuring finance to withstand cycles.
Final Thoughts
The recent surge in Perth property sales, together with tightening listings, paints a picture of an undersupplied, high-demand market. Buyers are actively engaging, price momentum is strong, and competition is fierce.
For those structuring or seeking property finance, the stakes are elevated. Efficiency, flexibility, and deep market insight make the difference between capitalising on opportunity and chasing after it. A tailored approach that anticipates micro shifts in supply and demand, embeds stress protections, and aligns finance with exit pathways is best equipped to ride the Perth market’s current wave.
As market conditions evolve, further deep dives into submarkets, funding case studies, and scenario modelling can help stakeholders remain well positioned.
If a version of this article focused on a particular Perth suburb or case study would be useful, that can be prepared to support clients seeking hyperlocal insight.