Property investors prompt growth in Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s property values, with activity helping ease rents

Property investors taking an interest in Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s lucrative market has likely contributed to the rise in property prices while helping ease rental asking prices, according to a property economist. The city’s property prices have increased 10.7 per cent in the past year, with the median reaching $365,729, according to the latest CoreLogic Regional Market Update released this week. CoreLogic economist Kaytlin Ezzy told the Kalgoorlie Miner the city’s property remained “incredibly affordable” compared to other markets. She said the increase was part of a wider national trend, with demand for property shifting from other States to WA markets, particularly regional markets. “They typically are more affordable markets and given the high-interest-rate environment that we are in, that’s really driven demand towards more affordable opportunities,” Ms Ezzy said. “For a market like Kalgoorlie it is quite a strong growth in values but at the same time a drop in rents — we’ve potentially seen some investors move into that market.” The property price increase has prompted rental yield — a figure which represents the rental income generated by property as a percentage of its value — to drop from its peak of 9.5 per cent in March. Despite the drop, rental yield remains high at 8.8 per cent with Kalgoorlie-Boulder remaining the city with the highest rental yield across the largest 50 non-capital city urban areas in Australia. The new data revealed weekly rental asking prices reached a median of $609, a figure down 0.9 per cent since March which Ms Ezzy said was likely a sign of property investors adding to the local rental supply. Properties in Kalgoorlie-Boulder typically sold after 31 days on the market, a drop from 34 days on the market at the same time last year. Ms Ezzy said Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s property values could be expected to continue on their current trajectory. “I would expect that we would continue to see an above average pace of growth compared to your other regional markets. “It is still an incredibly affordable market compared to a lot of the other investment opportunities. “It’s still got quite strong demand against very low supply so we would expect that that growth will continue, potentially, though, at a slightly slower pace.”