Western Australia is in a serious housing squeeze. Prices and rents are up, build times have blown out, and many homes—especially rentals—aren’t in great condition. That’s not just a “market issue”; it directly affects whether you can afford a safe, comfortable place to live.
This article breaks down the key findings from the Housing Affordability in Western Australia 2025 report in plain English. We’ll look at what’s really happening with prices, rents, new builds, build times, and housing quality, and what that means for your time, money and stress levels.
As you read the report, think about where you’re at—renting, saving, building, buying, or downsizing—and use this post as a guide to the questions you should be asking your builder, agent or lender before you commit to anything.
The Report in a Nutshell: What Are We Working With?
Before we start throwing numbers around, it helps to know where they came from.
This article is based on the Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre report Housing Affordability in Western Australia 2025: A Long Way From Home.
The authors pull information from several big datasets. CoreLogic provides the house price and rent figures you see in media charts. The Australian Housing Conditions Data Infrastructure Survey (a national survey of more than 20,000 households) gives detail on how people actually feel about their housing – whether it’s affordable, in good condition, warm or cool enough, and so on.
On top of that, they use national homelessness data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to track who’s turning up at services and who’s missing out.
They look at the full chain: house prices, rents, new building approvals and completions, construction times, housing quality, energy use, and homelessness. It’s not just “Can you buy a house?”, but “What’s it like to live in the home you can afford?” and “What happens when you can’t afford one at all?”
Like any report, it has limits. It’s a snapshot in time, based on the latest available data. Things like quality and comfort are harder to measure than price, and some local quirks will never show perfectly in a state-level graph.
But as a guide to what’s going on, it’s one of the clearest pictures we have.
As you read the rest of this article, keep that in mind: the story here isn’t guesswork. It’s drawn from real households and hard numbers.
The useful question for you is, “How much of this sounds like my situation now, or where I’m heading?”
A Housing System Under Pressure: The Big Picture
Western Australia’s housing system isn’t just “a bit tight” – it’s under real strain.
Since March 2023, WA’s population has jumped by about 4.2%, or roughly 119,000 extra people, with Greater Perth taking on around 85% of that growth. At the same time, dwelling completions finally pushed past 20,000 in 2024 for the first time since 2017, but that still falls short of the National Housing Accord’s target of 24,000 homes a year.
Most of what’s being built is detached housing, while the multi-residential sector remains weak because costs and revenues don’t stack up.
Build times have more than doubled, from around 7 months in 2018–19 to about 15.6 months in 2023–24. That’s now the longest in the country and, according to the report, has added up to around $100,000 to the price of a typical new home in just four years once you factor in holding costs, finance, and price escalation through the build.
On the resale side, established dwelling listings are scarce and days on market are near record lows.
Put simply: lots of people, not enough homes, long build queues, and very little ready-to-buy stock. That combination pushes prices and rents up and gives households less room to move if anything goes wrong with their plans.
The report’s authors are pretty blunt about the trend: without a sustained lift in supply — including more social and affordable housing — WA faces worsening affordability, rising homelessness and more pressure on support services.
There a structural gap between how many people are arriving and how many homes are actually being finished.
WA has a system problem, not just a price problem.
House Prices: How Far Out of Reach Are They?
WA house prices haven’t just drifted up – they’ve jumped.
Perth’s median house price is now in the high hundreds of thousands, and many suburbs have seen double-digit growth in only a few years. Regional centres have followed the same pattern, especially where there’s mining, infrastructure or strong jobs growth. For a lot of households, prices have moved faster than wages.
A few key patterns from the report:
- Single-income households — including teachers, nurses, police and aged-care workers — are increasingly locked out of many suburbs that used to be within reach.
- Investors are more active again, especially in outer suburbs where rental yields look attractive.
- First-home buyers are being pushed further out, or into smaller homes and townhouses, to make the numbers work.
On paper, banks still look at things like:
- The multiple of price to your household income (price-to-income ratio).
- Your ability to service the loan if interest rates move.
But from your side, the reality is simpler: if you’re stretching to buy, you’re taking on more risk. Higher repayments and thinner buffers leave less room for:
- Cost overruns if you’re building or renovating.
- Unexpected maintenance on an older home.
- Rate rises, job changes or time off work.
It’s also worth remembering that building standards (NCC and relevant Australian Standards) control safety, structure and minimum performance, not land price or developer margins.
A “compliant” house can still be very expensive, and a high price doesn’t guarantee high quality.
For many households, especially on one income, a detached home in a “traditional” suburb is now hard to reach without extra help — equity from family, a partner’s income, or shared-ownership schemes.
The risk isn’t just paying more; it’s having no wriggle room if life changes.
The Rental Squeeze: Paying More for Less
If you’re renting in WA, you don’t need a report to tell you things are tight – but the numbers back it up.
Rents have jumped sharply over the last few years. Median weekly rents for houses in Perth have risen by hundreds of dollars since 2020, with double-digit increases in just the last year. For many households, pay packets haven’t kept pace.
At the same time, vacancy rates have been sitting at very low levels. For a long stretch they were under 1%, and even now they’re only just edging up. In plain terms: there aren’t many properties to choose from, and anything half-decent goes quickly.
The report also highlights a few important shifts:
- Only a small amount of extra rental stock has been added, despite big population growth.
- Most of the new rental supply is on the fringe, where land is cheaper.
- Inner and middle-ring suburbs — closer to jobs, schools and hospitals — are actually losing rental stock.
That means more renters are being pushed further out to find something they can afford. On paper, the rent might be lower. In real life, they’re paying extra in:
- Time in the car or on public transport
- Fuel and tolls
- Wear and tear on the car
- Missing out on family time or rest
For anyone trying to save a deposit, rising rents make it harder to get ahead. You’re feeding more of your income into rent each month, while house prices and build costs keep moving.
Investors are feeling the squeeze too. Higher interest rates and build costs mean some are cautious about adding new supply, even though rents are high. That’s one reason why shortages persist.
Home Quality and Liveability: Not Just the Sticker Price
Affordability isn’t only about the mortgage or the rent. It’s also about what it’s like to live in the place you can afford.
The WA housing data shows a clear pattern: owners generally live in better-quality homes than renters, and a lot of rental stock is in rough shape. Many households report:
- Damp or mould
- Cracks in walls and ceilings
- Poor insulation and temperature control
- Higher energy bills than they’d expect for the size of the home
Only around two-thirds of people rate their housing condition as “good” or “excellent”, and renters are over-represented in the bottom end of the scale. Cheap rent or a lower purchase price often comes with hidden costs: discomfort, constant maintenance issues, and bigger power bills.
From a building and compliance point of view, the National Construction Code and relevant Australian Standards set minimums for things like structure, waterproofing, insulation and ventilation. But “minimum compliant” doesn’t necessarily mean “comfortable, quiet and cheap to run”. A house can pass its inspections and still be:
- Hot in summer and freezing in winter
- Prone to condensation and mould
- Expensive to heat and cool
For new builds, the design choices you make — orientation, shading, insulation levels, window type, ventilation, and detailing around damp-proofing — will drive your long-term comfort and energy costs more than the colour of the bench tops ever will.
Homelessness and Social Housing: The Sharp End of the Problem
When housing becomes too expensive or too unstable, the pressure shows up at the very bottom first.
In WA, homelessness has been rising. More people are:
- Sleeping rough or in cars
- Couch surfing with friends or family
- Relying on crisis and emergency accommodation
Women make up a large share of people using homelessness services, often linked to family and domestic violence. Older women, First Nations people and even people in full-time work are increasingly represented. Having a job is no longer a guarantee of secure housing.
Social housing (government or community housing at below-market rent) is meant to be the safety net. The trouble is:
- There aren’t enough homes for the demand
- Waitlists are long and growing
- Existing stock is ageing and often needs upgrades
When social housing isn’t keeping up, people who can’t compete in the private rental market have nowhere steady to land. That flows back into hospitals, schools, police, and community services, and it affects everyone – not just those at the sharp end.
What This Means If You’re Planning to Buy or Build in WA
If you’re looking to buy or build in WA, the current conditions shape almost every part of your decision.
Longer build times – now often well over a year from slab to handover – mean more time paying rent or a mortgage on your current place while also paying interest on your construction loan. Delays can also push you into new price rises for materials and labour, or into variations if you change anything mid-stream.
In practice, that means you need to think less about the “headline price” and more about the total cost over time:
- How long you’ll be paying rent and a construction loan
- How much buffer you have if your builder runs late
- What happens if the builder goes under partway through
Contracts matter more in this environment. You want clear wording around:
- Provisional sums and prime cost items
- Time extensions and delay clauses
- How variations are priced and approved
Quality also becomes a bigger risk. With a stretched workforce and lots of jobs on the go, there’s a temptation to move fast and “sort it out later”. That can show up as defects, poor detailing, and performance issues that are technically compliant with the NCC on paper, but not great in day-to-day use.
On the flip side, buying an established home can reduce build-time risk but may expose you to:
- Older construction that doesn’t meet current energy or performance standards
- Hidden maintenance issues (roofing, waterproofing, services)
- Layouts that don’t suit how people live now
Either way, you’re trading between time, cost, quality and location. There’s no perfect option, but going in with your eyes open helps.
Policy Ideas: What Needs to Change
The report doesn’t just describe the mess – it suggests what governments could do about it. In simple terms, it argues for three layers of action.
Right now (next 12 months)
Short-term moves to stop people falling through the cracks:
- More help with rent for low-income households
- Ongoing emergency rent relief, not one-off schemes
- Extra funding for homelessness services and crisis accommodation
- Support to improve basic energy efficiency in poorer homes and rentals
These don’t fix the system, but they reduce immediate harm.
Next few years (1–4 years)
Medium-term changes to actually get more decent homes built:
- Push more projects through to completion, not just “announce” them
- Use public land and funding to build social, affordable and key-worker housing
- Encourage build-to-rent and “missing middle” housing in good locations
- Set minimum standards for rentals (damp, heating/cooling, basic energy performance)
This is about adding real, livable homes where people actually need them.
Longer term (5+ years)
Bigger structural shifts so we don’t end up here again:
- Commit to building enough homes each year to keep up with population growth
- Grow social housing as a share of the total stock, not let it shrink
- Reform taxes like stamp duty so people can move more easily to the right home
- Plan housing alongside jobs, transport and services, not as an afterthought
No single idea solves it on its own. The report is clear that it has to be a mix of safety net, supply and system change over time.
Conclusion: WA’s Housing Squeeze and What You Can Do
WA’s housing story in 2025 is pretty clear: more people, not enough homes, long build times, higher prices and rents, and too many homes that are uncomfortable or in poor shape. At the sharp end, social housing can’t keep up and homelessness is rising. None of that is an accident – it’s what happens when demand runs ahead of supply for too long and quality is treated as an optional extra.
For individual households, the big risks sit around time, cost and quality. Long build queues and stretched workforces make it easier for defects to slip through. High prices and rents thin out your buffers. And a focus on “getting in” at any cost can leave you with a home that’s technically compliant with the NCC but expensive, damp, or hard to live in.
The good news is you’re not powerless.
You can:
- Ask better questions of builders, agents and lenders.
- Put more effort into contracts, inspections and planning.
- Weigh running costs and comfort alongside the upfront price.
At the same time, governments and industry need to lift their game: more well-located homes, stronger minimum standards for rentals, and a serious long-term plan for social and affordable housing.
You don’t have to solve the whole system
Your job is to make the best decisions you can with the information you have, protect yourself where you can, and support changes that make decent, safe housing more achievable for everyone.
FAQs
1. Why does housing in WA feel so much harder to afford now?
Because population has grown quickly while housing supply, especially well-located and rental stock, hasn’t kept up. At the same time, build costs and times have blown out. That combination pushes both prices and rents higher and gives households less room to move.
2. Are long build times really that big a deal?
Yes. When a build stretches from several months to well over a year, you pay more in construction interest, rent while you wait, and you’re more exposed to cost increases and builder delays. It’s not just annoying – it’s expensive.
3. Is it safer to buy an existing home instead of building?
It depends. Buying existing reduces build-time risk but can expose you to older construction, hidden defects and poor energy performance. Building new gives you more control over design and performance, but you wear build-time and builder-risk. Either way, inspections and due diligence are essential.
4. Why are renters often in worse-quality housing?
Owners have stronger incentives and control to maintain and upgrade their homes. Renters rely on landlords who may be focused on short-term returns and minimum compliance. Without strong minimum standards and enforcement, some rental stock stays damp, poorly insulated and expensive to run.
5. Does social housing actually help people who aren’t in it?
Yes. A healthy social housing system reduces pressure on crisis services, hospitals and police, and takes some demand out of the lowest end of the private rental market. That can stabilise rents and improve neighbourhood conditions for everyone.
6. Will building more units and townhouses really improve affordability?
If they’re built in the right locations, at decent quality, and at scale, yes. More “missing middle” housing in established suburbs helps more people live close to jobs, schools and services, rather than being pushed to the fringe and paying the price in time and transport.
7. What should I look for in a building contract in this environment?
Pay close attention to how delays, provisional sums, prime cost items and variations are handled, and what happens if the program blows out. Make sure the contract reflects Australian Standards and NCC requirements, and get it reviewed by someone who understands construction, not just general law.
8. How can I tell if I’m over-stretching to buy?
Two simple checks: how many times your gross household income the purchase price is, and what share of your after-tax income will go to mortgage payments. If both numbers are high and you have little buffer for rates rises or life changes, you’re probably over-stretching.
9. What if my home feels unsafe or unhealthy now?
Document issues with photos and dates, raise them in writing with your landlord, agent or builder, and keep records of responses. If you get nowhere, look at tenant advocacy services, consumer affairs bodies or an independent building consultant for backing and advice.
10. Is now a “good time” to buy or build in WA?
There’s no universal answer. It’s a good time if the numbers stack up for you, you understand the risks, you’ve allowed for delays and cost increases, and you’re not banking on perfect conditions. If you’re rushing because of fear of missing out, that’s a warning sign.
Further Reading
Lissy Alvaran
Anthony Painter
Anthony Painter
Anthony Painter
Anthony Painter
Anthony Painter
Anthony Painter
Anthony Painter
