If any town in Western Australia is symptomatic of the state's boom and bust cycle, it's Port Hedland.A rental shortage is drawing locals and investors into the property marketOnce again, the town, where the Pilbara's rich iron ore is shipped to the world from, is experiencing soaring rents and property prices.
Hedland First National Real Estate Agent Danielle Mariu put the price rises down to mining companies having to house normally fly-in fly-out workers locally amid the COVID-19 pandemic."Basically what was a very east coast-based FIFO sector," she said. "For argument's sake, a mortgage on that, give or take … we roughly say around $500 a week at most it would cost you to actually own that house [in repayments], as opposed to if you were to rent the exact same identical house, you would be expected to be paying $1,000-plus in the current rental market.
Beryl Parker owns a small trucking business that tows trailers out to the iron ore mines, and she counts herself lucky for recently securing a $225,000 house in South Hedland.
Any chance you could do a story on the hundred that list 500k when the boom crashed?
One minute you provide news on the difficulty in renting for low incomers then her basically have a party gloating about exorbitant wealth to be had
And this is a good thing ?. Bloody hell.
And just where is that iron ore going?
so you borrow $500k at low interest rates, buy a place to rent. New found income goes to new cars and boats....then it all crashes again. Property price plummets and you have no equity and are left with a debt you can’t service. Winner ...Banks heard this song before
The exact same thing happened in the last boom. Two years later there were tears everywhere, because people had empty houses, and couldn't understand why their investment wasn't sustainable.
You can also live in your car in Port Hedland.
Just because you can, does that mean you should?