Courtney Trenwith | WA Today | April 28, 2011
http://www.watoday.com.au/business/property/perth-property-in-freefall-as-price-slump-shows-no-sign-of-ending-20110427-1dwi3.html

Perth property prices are expected to continue to fall for the rest of the year in what could be the city's worst property recession since before the Global Financial Crisis.
 
And while WA's strong economic prospects could prompt a recovery, analysts now fear the property market will need to show a significant turnaround before the negative sentiment can be reversed.
 
Data released by Australian Property Monitors - owned by Fairfax Digital, publisher of this website - shows Perth median house and unit prices fell for the third consecutive quarter during the three months to March and show no sign of stabilising.
 
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The median house price in the metropolitan area declined 1.1 per cent to $540,978, while unit prices fell 0.7 per cent, taking the median price to $363,050.
 
Nationally, the March quarter saw median house prices fall 0.6 per cent and median unit prices drop 1.2 per cent. Over the year, growth in house prices slowed to 0.2 per cent.
 
Perth's median house price has now slumped 4.1 per cent - or $22,800 - in the past year, while units have fallen 4.9 per cent ($18,600).
 
The continued decline surprised analysts who had expected to see the city's property market start to stabilise by the March quarter.
 
"We expected to start to see some price growth ... in Perth from the middle of the year. I don't think that will happen now," APM senior economist Andrew Wilson said.
 
"We'd be lucky to see price growth at the end of the year. There are no clear signs yet that we have either stabilised or that we have potential to move off the bottom."
 
The resources boom saw Perth property prices skyrocket in 2005-06 before pulling back with four consecutive quarters of negative growth from March 2008.
 
"We knew that Perth had a massive boom in [the 2005-06] period and there was always going to be a massive adjustment coming back from that [but it has gone on] longer than we anticipated," Dr Wilson said.
 
"A lot [of the dent in confidence] has been driven by the mining tax issue. Buying and selling a house is a big decision, when there's a lack of confidence going forward ... it dissuades people from taking large commitments on."
 
He said a lack of first-home buyers and concerns over affordability were also affecting the market.
 
Strong economic growth, including lower unemployment and higher full-time jobs growth and wages, would be the "catalyst" for a recovery in the Perth housing market.
 
"The Perth outlook is more positive than other [capital cities] in terms of the expectation that it will have very strong economic growth generated by export income," Dr Wilson said.
 
"But the fact is that sentiment is so negative we're going to need to see a significant outcome from the prospective economic growth to turn around negative sentiment that is at the moment keeping the market extremely subdued."
 
RP Data is expected to release research tomorrow indicating similar findings as well as increased rental prices during March.