Real estate agents reassure Bunbury’s housing economy is still holding strong after RBA halts cash rates

Real estate agents have reassured that Bunbury’s housing economy is doing well with news that the Reserve Bank decided to leave interest rates on hold for the second month in a row. On Tuesday, the central bank decided to leave cash rates at 4.1 per cent, a result that experts are saying will be a relief for Australian home borrowers. Real estate and property developers said Bunbury was one of the few areas in the State not undergoing the levels of crisis the market was seeing on the east coast and in metropolitan areas. Summit Realty’s Greg Gardiner said the market “is still really strong in the greater Bunbury area”. “There’s a lot of local transactions happening, a lot of people from Perth are buying and certainly there’s been a lot of interest from East Coast investors buying into the Bunbury region in recent times as well,” he said. Mr Gardiner said the cash rate freeze would make a minor difference to the already strong South West housing economy. “It’s only a minor difference, I think what could impact a lot of people including myself is that there’s a lot of people that signed up two, three years ago and fixed (their interest rate), which is coming off over the next few months, that may have a bit of an impact on things,” he said. “Basically a lot of people were fixed on around 2 or 3 per cent and it’ll jump to around six, that may have a bit of an impact, but at the moment pretty well every listing under $500,000 we could sell it 10 times over the first week of the market.” Elders Southern Districts Estate Agency’s Anthony Schirripa said Bunbury had fared well in the ongoing housing crisis and expected the rates changes to have limited impact. “I think personally the rate is still quite low. I think when it hits around the 8 per cent mark then we will not buy, I think that’s when you start seeing a real shift,” he said. “Bunbury is still cheap to buy, it’s another reason why Bunbury and the South West area’s still thriving.” Mr Schirripa said Bunbury’s popularity for blue-collar and FIFO work was one of the reasons contributing to the strong economy. “We’re in a situation that things are moving pretty good,” he said.