WA’s Housing Crunch: Costs, Delays and Risks

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 decides whether you can afford a safe, comfortable place to live.

This post breaks down the key findings of the Housing Affordability in Western Australia 2025 report in plain English, and what they mean for your time, money and stress levels.

Most of our readers are in Queensland, and the same pressures (long build times, rising costs, stretched trades) are playing out here too. So even if you're building in Brisbane rather than Perth, the lessons and the questions to ask your builder, agent or lender apply.

The Report in a Nutshell

This post is based on the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre report Housing Affordability in Western Australia 2025: A Long Way From Home (June 2025). It draws on CoreLogic price and rent data, a national survey of more than 20,000 households on housing conditions, and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare homelessness data.

It looks at the full chain: prices, rents, approvals and completions, construction times, housing quality, energy use and homelessness. Not just "Can you buy a house?" but "What's it like to live in the home you can afford?"

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

WA's housing system isn't just "a bit tight". It's under real strain.

Since March 2023, WA's population has grown by about 4.2%, roughly 119,000 people, with Greater Perth taking around 85% of that growth. Dwelling completions passed 20,000 in 2024 for the first time since 2017, but that's still short of the National Housing Accord 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, the longest in the country. The report estimates that has added up to around $100,000 to the cost of a typical new home in four years, once you include holding costs, finance and price rises during 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 pushes prices and rents up and leaves households less room to move if their plans go wrong.

The authors are blunt: 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.

House Prices: How Far Out of Reach Are They?

WA house prices haven't just drifted up. They've jumped, faster than wages. The report found more than 210,000 WA households now consider their housing unaffordable, up 91% in just two years.

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.

Banks look at your price-to-income ratio and whether you can still service the loan if rates move. From your side, it's simpler: if you're stretching to buy, you're taking on more risk, with 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.

Remember, building standards (the NCC and Australian Standards) control safety, structure and minimum performance. They don't control land prices 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 help from family equity, a second 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.

WA's median weekly rent has reached $740, up 76% since 2020. For many households, pay packets haven't kept pace.

Vacancy rates sat under 1% for a long stretch and have only recently passed 2%. In plain terms: not much to choose from, and anything 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.

So renters are pushed further out. The rent might be lower, but they pay extra in travel time, fuel, tolls, car wear and tear, and lost family time.

Rising rents also make it harder to save a deposit, while prices and build costs keep moving. And higher interest rates and build costs make some investors wary of adding new supply, which is one reason shortages persist.

brown parquet floor — Photo by Steven Ungermann / Unsplash

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 at the bottom. A cheaper home often comes with hidden costs: discomfort, constant maintenance and bigger power bills.

The National Construction Code and Australian Standards set minimums for structure, waterproofing, insulation and ventilation. But "minimum compliant" doesn't 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, your design choices (orientation, shading, insulation, window type, ventilation and damp-proofing details) will drive your long-term comfort and energy costs far more than the colour of the benchtops.

When housing gets too expensive or unstable, the pressure shows up at the bottom first. In WA, homelessness is rising, with more people sleeping rough or in cars, couch surfing, or relying on crisis 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.

Social housing (government or community housing at below-market rent) is meant to be the safety net, but there aren't enough homes, waitlists are growing, and existing stock is ageing. That flows back into hospitals, schools, police and community services, and affects everyone.

textile under the wall mounted hooks — Photo by Mihály Köles / Unsplash

What This Means If You're Buying or Building (in WA or Queensland)

Longer build times (about 15.6 months on average from start to completion in WA in 2023-24) mean more time paying rent or a mortgage while also paying interest on a construction loan. Delays can also expose you to price rises and variations if anything changes mid-build.

So 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 becomes a bigger risk too. With a stretched workforce and lots of jobs on the go, there's a temptation to move fast and "sort it out later". That shows up as defects, poor detailing and homes that are technically compliant on paper but not great to live in. Stage inspections matter more, not less.

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.

person holding pencil near laptop computer — Photo by Scott Graham / Unsplash

Policy Ideas: What Needs to Change

The report suggests three layers of action. In short:

Right now (next 12 months): more rent assistance and ongoing emergency rent relief for low-income households, extra funding for homelessness services, and energy-efficiency upgrades for poorer homes and rentals.

Next 1-4 years: push announced projects through to completion, use public land and funding for social, affordable and key-worker housing, encourage build-to-rent and "missing middle" housing in good locations, and set minimum standards for rentals.

Longer term (5+ years): build enough homes each year to match population growth, grow social housing as a share of total stock, reform stamp duty, and plan housing alongside jobs, transport and services. Read the full report for the detail.

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: What You Can Do

WA's housing story in 2025 is clear: more people, not enough homes, long build times, higher prices and rents, and too many homes in poor shape. For individual households, the big risks are time, cost and quality.

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.

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.