Buy Property For Under $500,000 in Western Australia

Western Australia’s first home buyers now get the best deal on stamp duty compared to the rest of Australia.

Western Australians first home buyers don’t pay any sales tax on properties valued up to $500,000. Based on an average sale price first home buyers are eligible for grants of a net total $15,740 or 5.4% of the average house price in the state.

The lesson here for investors is to make sure that you are considering a property which will appeal to a first home buyer – $500,000 is the ceiling price that you are going to be able to sell it for – buy a property worth $600,000 if you want – but not one which you would price at $520,000 – you will find it difficult to shift.

Victoria and South Australia in contrast offer much higher grant – totally up to $17,000 and $18,000 respectively – but once you deduct the sales taxes the net grant is only $5992 or $7492 respectively.

As its generally expected, outside of the real estate industry hype that is, that prices have further to fall in Western Australia – then the $500,000 limit is likely to stay for a while. I would keep that as an absolute top price paid to be for any property that I intended to buy and flip on or to renovate and re-sell. Even if a property investor intends to retain the property for a number of years – I believe it would be wise to stay under the $500,000 level to ensure that if you have to re-sell its not going to be difficult to do.  Its really not that limiting- the property pictured above is a fully-renovated 4 bedroom/2 bath in Alexander Heights which is only 15 minutes drive south of Perth’s CBD – might even look twice at the one myself!