Geraldton house prices set to continue rising, says expert

Rangeway has been ranked one of the top 20 regional suburbs in Australia for housing price growth this year after surging more than 30 per cent.

According to the latest housing data from Domain, house prices in Rangeway have risen by 30.9 per cent over the past year, with the median price sitting at $222,500.

“That is similar to some of the growth rates we would normally see coming out of Sydney suburbs,” Domain research and economics chief Nicola Powell said.

“When prices are rising rapidly, you see this affordability steer and this ripple effect occur where people seek those affordable locations.

“They seek the areas that perhaps haven’t seen such strong rates of price growth relative to other areas or ones with a lower price point.”

Dr Powell believes housing prices will continue to rise in Geraldton, but at a slower rate.

Median house prices in the Greater Geraldton area rose 10.8 per cent from this time last year, while Spalding increased 17.3 per cent over the past 12 months.

Dr Powell said WA as a whole was experiencing strong house price growth, but expected a decline in the growth rate in the near future.

“House prices were up 4.8 per cent over the quarter in WA,” she said.

“When you’re seeing that level of price growth, that’s unsustainable in the longer term.

“What we’re likely to see is prices will continue to rise, but what we could see is a bit of momentum loss.

“So prices will rise, but just not as fast as what they currently are.”

A local real estate agent has seen the price increases firsthand.

Geraldton Property Team director David Potiuch said suburbs in Geraldton such as Rangeway have seen big increases over the past couple of years.

He said the demand from the Eastern States was still strong.

“We see a lot of east coast buyers in the market, which is really pushing up those cheaper prices,” Mr Potiuch said.

“To hear prices have gone up by 31 per cent for the last 12 months isn’t surprising.”

According to Mr Potiuch, there was also competition across Geraldton with people looking to flip houses in order to make money.

“We’re seeing recent sales even over the last month or two, where people have bought a property and they’ve done a renovation on the house, do it up a little bit, and then sell it for a lot more,” he said.

“That’s really influencing on the annual increased change in house prices.”

Mr Potiuch said anything under $450,000 had a strong market of buyers.

He encouraged those looking to buy to contact multiple sales representatives for options, and to get pre-approval if they required finance.