December 2025
One-year high
Among tightest in Australia
A Record Quarter by Any Measure
The December 2025 quarter produced Perth's strongest quarterly result since 2006. House prices surged 9.9% — or $97,727 — in just three months, pushing the median to $1,087,762. No other capital city came close to that quarterly pace. That single quarter erased years of the affordability gap that had long made Perth one of Australia's most accessible major cities.
The surge continues an unbroken run that is now the longest in a generation. Perth has recorded 13 consecutive quarters of house price growth — the longest uninterrupted upswing since the resource boom years of 2000 to 2007.
Annual growth came in at 18.4%, adding $168,860 to the median price over the 12 months to December 2025. That is a one-year high and positions Perth as the second-fastest growing capital city market nationally, behind only Darwin.
Where Perth Sits Nationally
For years, Perth was the outlier — the city that didn't quite fit the east coast narrative. That has changed decisively. Perth's median house price of $1,087,762 now sits above Hobart ($767,451) and Darwin ($690,896), and has overtaken several cities that were comfortably ahead just two years ago.
Perth remains more affordable than Sydney ($1,759,909), Brisbane ($1,171,237), Canberra ($1,139,969) and Melbourne ($1,111,084), but the gap is narrowing rapidly. At the current pace of growth, the city is on a trajectory that would close much of that difference within a small number of years.
Houses and Units: Both Markets Accelerating
Perth's price growth isn't confined to houses. The unit market has been running hard alongside it — and in some respects, harder.
Unit prices rose 7.4% in the December quarter to a record median of $608,520, the strongest quarterly result in one and a half years. Annually, units are up 17.8%, adding $92,095 to the median in 12 months.
The sustained strength across both markets has produced a notable milestone. Perth has now become the fifth most expensive capital city in Australia in which to buy a unit — overtaking Melbourne for the first time since 2018. That is not a ranking many would have predicted at the start of the decade.
Both property types have now recorded 11 or more consecutive quarters of growth. Momentum is accelerating rather than cooling. Houses are currently outperforming units on quarterly growth, widening the price gap between the two — a house now costs approximately 79% more than a unit in Perth.
A Market Built Over Years, Breaking Records Now
The December 2025 result didn't emerge from nowhere. Perth's price trajectory over the past three years tells the story of a market that gained quietly, then loudly.
From early 2023 through to mid-2025, Perth recorded consistent but measured quarterly gains across both houses and units. Each quarter added to the previous, compounding steadily. Then in the December quarter of 2025, that pace broke sharply upward — producing the strongest single quarter in almost two decades.
The Rental Market: High Rents, an Emerging Ceiling
The rental market tells a different but equally significant story. Perth house rents held at $700 per week in the December quarter — the second consecutive quarter of no growth. Unit rents held at $650 per week for the third quarter in a row.
On its own, that stability might suggest a cooling market. In context, it reflects something different: an affordability ceiling. Rents in Perth surged sharply through the early and mid-2020s. They have now reached a level where many tenants cannot absorb further increases. The result is a market where rents remain extremely high but are no longer rising.
Annual house rent growth has slowed to 4.5% and annual unit rent growth to 4.8% — the weakest pace in five and a half years for both measures. That is a significant step down from the double-digit growth rates recorded through 2020 to 2024.
The vacancy rate stood at just 0.5% in December 2025 — one of the tightest in the country, and the lowest December reading since 2023. Conditions remain firmly in landlords' favour. The low vacancy rate signals that demand for rental properties is not easing, even as rent growth flattens.
For investors, this combination — record-low vacancy, stabilising rents at elevated levels, and strong capital growth — is a profile that is difficult to ignore.
What Is Driving Perth?
Perth's run is not built on speculation alone. Several structural forces are reinforcing demand.
Western Australia's economy remains one of the strongest in the country, underpinned by the resources sector, strong state government finances and a relatively low unemployment rate. Interstate and overseas migration has added steady pressure to an already constrained housing supply. New dwelling construction has not kept pace with population growth, and the low vacancy rate in the rental market is partly a consequence of that undersupply flowing through the entire housing system.
Perth also entered this cycle from a position of relative affordability. Buyers priced out of Sydney and Melbourne — and increasingly Brisbane — have looked west. That demand from elsewhere has combined with strong local conditions to produce an unusually powerful and sustained upswing.
What Comes Next?
The quarterly surge of 9.9% seen in December is an outlier by any historical standard. Sustained growth at that pace would be extraordinary. But the conditions that have driven Perth's run — tight supply, strong migration, a robust local economy and relative affordability versus the east coast — have not fundamentally changed.
Domain's research notes that prices are expected to continue rising into 2026, though higher interest rates are likely to moderate the pace. Perth's 13-quarter streak and the structural demand sitting beneath it suggest the market is unlikely to reverse sharply.
Perth crossed $1 million for the first time in the December quarter of 2025. The question now is not whether it will hold above that mark, but how much further it will move.
