Welcome To DGRE
With over 44 years of service to the greater Fremantle community, Dethridge Groves Real Estate is your local expert in real estate sales and property management. Three-time REIWA award-winners in marketing and communications, DGRE has an expert team of real estate selling agents and property managers, led by former REIWA President Hayden Groves. DGRE is your preferred, trusted real estate partner, having sold and managed more homes in and around Fremantle than any other agency. Contact us today for your free market appraisal, property management services, market analysis and general real estate advice from the community’s leading agency.
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Latest News
Mar 14, 2024
More Growth to Come
Perth’s housing values have increased more than 50 percent since the end of 2019 firmly putting an end to speculation that our run of price gains was purely due to the low interest rate, stimuli-fuelled COVID period. Core Logic reports Perth’s current median home value to be $687,004 up 52.9 percent since the bottom-of-the-market March 2020 price of $449,325. Current values eclipse the previous 2014 peak of $518,540. We’ve been witness to similar markets in the past. For example, back in 2006, Perth’s median house value rose a whopping 40.6 percent in twelve months thanks to the mining boom. Prices retreated relatively quickly after mining-related construction jobs ended and workers returned to whence they’d come. Back then, WA’s population gains went from +1,000 persons per week to -150 per week in a short period, hence the fairly spectacular downward adjustment in house values; demand simply fell away. There is a fundamental difference in Perth’s housing landscape this time around with population gains, low housing supply and relative affordability the three fundamental drivers of our market. These three factors are set to underpin positive house price growth for at least this year and into next with no predictable market shock on the horizon to bring this upward trajectory to a premature end. Considering each fundamental in turn, Perth’s house prices could gain a further 15 to 18 percent this year based on current trajectories. WA’s changes to population growth are at peak levels with around 22,000 new arrivals quarterly. Overseas migration is out-pacing interstate migration growth and with a housing shortage, the demand for more homes inevitably pushes up house prices. Meanwhile, REIWA continues to report low listing numbers currently at about 3,250, well below long term averages. The supply pipeline looks bleak too with current annual dwelling approvals 24 percent below the 10-year average for houses and an astonishing 74 percent below for units. Clearly, we are not going to be building enough homes for to cater for our population gains anytime soon. In fact, WA is leading the nation in terms of time taken to build new homes. Yet Perth remains one of the most affordable places in the nation to buy property with a year-to-date median house price of $718,500, well behind Sydney’s $1,395,804, Melbourne’s $942,671 and Brisbane’s $899,474. We have nudged past Hobart’s $696,508 in recent months. And the percentage of average household income to service current average mortgages in Perth is 29.8 percent, way more affordable than Sydney’s 58.1 percent. Interest rates are predicted to fall later this year as the broader economy slows. It’s foreseeable that such a move will add further fuel to Perth’s already hot property market....
Mar 7, 2024
Women in Property
The Real Estate Institute of Australia is now led by a CEO, President and Deputy President all of whom are women. Six of the eight state and territory Real Estate Institutes have women CEOs. Most of the high-profile property commentators we see in the media are women. Women represent the majority of real estate practitioners across Australia. Property Managers, Sales Agents, Agency Principals, CEO’s, Heads of Franchise groups, Marketers, Executive Assistants, Leasing Agents, Buyer Agents, every conceivable role, women are at the forefront of our industry. In terms of the daily work of real estate practitioner, women tend to develop a rapport with a property owner from a genuinely empathetic approach and can have a better appreciation of the stresses associated with selling or renting a home. In these early exchanges, women also tend to take time to listen to the homeowner and feedback advice that is in tune with their property needs. For a long time, real estate practitioners have had a reputation of unethical behaviours in search of a commission. Thankfully, for a variety of reasons, this has necessarily changed and agents now enjoy strong endorsement from the broader community for the work they do. However, the remnants of these biases float about from time-to-time with such negative perceptions usually focused on slick haired, gold chained blokes who seem prepared to sell their grandmothers for a quid. Such views are almost always born out of ignorance with such stereotypes fast becoming a thing of the past. Yet if any such stigma remains, it is interesting that it doesn’t appear to apply to women real estate practitioners. And perceptions are powerful motivators. There is a perception that women are more trustworthy, more honest and better organised than men; important qualities for a real estate agent. Women are often touted as having a superior eye for detail in design and decor than their male counterparts do too. It is International Women’s Day this week and is a celebration of the empowerment of women across society, including the work force. On average, we still pay women less than men to do the same job, but not in real estate where an increasing number of the top selling agents are women. So, in celebration of International Women’s Day, congratulations to all women involved in real estate, may they continue to grow the professionalism of our industry to the benefit of us all....
Feb 29, 2024
Sorry, Disconnected
Sometimes, governments make decisions that have unintended consequences that impact the practical ways certain industries work. Canberra’s latest effort to over-regulate comes in the form of changes to the Fair Work Act that formalise an employee’s ‘right to disconnect’. The changes effectively mean an employee may refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from an employer outside of the employee’s normal working hours. As an employer, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an employee to ignore my phone call after hours, and unless it was a serious emergency, I wouldn’t be calling them after hours anyway. But, do we really need to make a law for it? For the real estate industry, the implications could be significant. The business of real estate – sales or property management – doesn’t happen during usual business hours. The laws extend to an employee (sales representative or property manager) refusing to monitor, read or respond to contact from a third party if the contact relates to their work. This includes contact from vendors, tenants, buyers and lessors. The obvious issues for national companies operating in Western Australia have been neatly overlooked by east coasters with the 3-hour time difference in summer could mean an effective workday starting in midday in Melbourne and Sydney and ending here two hours later. The changes could result in lost business if employees refuse to take urgent calls on a critical matter, such as a live sale negotiation. And what about a matter concerning safety at a property where property or person is at risk where a worker is required to manage such emergencies? The new laws are set to become law in July this year. After which, a tenant, needing assistance to get into their home after losing their keys at 6 pm can expect no reply from their property manager. A vendor, - in theory - wanting to know how Saturday’s home open went, can’t demand a response from their sales agent until Monday morning. As a result, many real estate employees will ignore the new laws and carry on providing service to their clients, tenants and buyers outside normal working hours. It won’t be until something goes wrong with the employer / employee relationship that challenges might arise. Employers could find themselves in strife with the Fair Work Commission if a disgruntled employee claims they were expected to work outside normal business hours without the right to disconnect. Employees working from home further muddies the water given these arrangements enable a degree of flexibility that transcends normal work hours anyway. Time will tell what impacts come from these laws that seem to be an answer to a question no one ever really asked....
Feb 22, 2024
Who’s to Blame?
Housing affordability is one of the most significant challenges of the modern era. Both house prices and rents are at record highs in Perth and across much of the nation with Perth’s median house and rent prices at around $600,000 and $600 per week respectively and growing faster than any other major Australian capital. We understand that the reason for these rises is down to simple economics, higher demand and short supply means prices and rents rise. Governments have done a spectacular job at shifting blame away from their own housing policy failures to investors, banks, real estate agents, local councils and developers. Yet, each of these sectors play a pivotal role in delivering the existing housing stock. Governments, on the other hand, through their taxation and other policies actively undermine housing supply. Property investors, mostly families that own a single investment property, provide 90 percent of all residential rental homes across Australia, housing millions of tenants. They obtain a moderate benefit by claiming some of the expenses stemming from that investment against their taxable income via negative gearing. However, once positively geared, investors pay tax on the property’s income and pay Capital Gains Tax if they make a profit upon selling. Banks, whilst not the most popular corporate citizens, provide the funding for property through mortgages. Banks also provide the funding for developers. Us real estate agents provide the services that help investors navigate residential tenancy laws, help people into home ownership and enable property transactions. Local councils often stymie property developments, especially increased density but they also adapt their planning laws over time, enhancing our urban environments. Developers provide housing on mass, adding density to areas where people aspire to live, work and recreate. Part of the reason property values are rising is the cost of construction, both labour and materials, has risen by around 40 percent in 3 years with end property values for finished product not at levels sufficient to support the viability of the project. Developers work to a margin and if the project fails the feasibility test, it doesn’t get built. That’s why new emerging density areas such as those around the new Metronet hubs will take several years to be developed; the cost of delivering the project is higher than the combined value of the housing produced. These cost constraints are not limited to construction costs. Land tax, holding costs, public art levies, developer levies, rates, headworks fees and stamp duty are additional cost burdens representing around 25 percent of the total development costs. This is where government ought to step in. If they were serious about housing supply, government would support the groups that provide the housing. Instead, state and federal governments either fail to provide the housing themselves (public housing waiting lists are at record highs) or set policies (stamp duty, tenancy law changes and land tax for example) that actively discourage additional housing supply. If it isn’t government, who is to blame for the housing crisis?...
Mar 14, 2024
More Growth to Come
Perth’s housing values have increased more than 50 percent since the end of 2019 firmly putting an end to speculation that our run of price gains was purely due to the low interest rate, stimuli-fuelled COVID period. Core Logic reports Perth’s current median home value to be $687,004 up 52.9 percent since the bottom-of-the-market March 2020 price of $449,325. Current values eclipse the previous 2014 peak of $518,540. We’ve been witness to similar markets in the past. For example, back in 2006, Perth’s median house value rose a whopping 40.6 percent in twelve months thanks to the mining boom. Prices retreated relatively quickly after mining-related construction jobs ended and workers returned to whence they’d come. Back then, WA’s population gains went from +1,000 persons per week to -150 per week in a short period, hence the fairly spectacular downward adjustment in house values; demand simply fell away. There is a fundamental difference in Perth’s housing landscape this time around with population gains, low housing supply and relative affordability the three fundamental drivers of our market. These three factors are set to underpin positive house price growth for at least this year and into next with no predictable market shock on the horizon to bring this upward trajectory to a premature end. Considering each fundamental in turn, Perth’s house prices could gain a further 15 to 18 percent this year based on current trajectories. WA’s changes to population growth are at peak levels with around 22,000 new arrivals quarterly. Overseas migration is out-pacing interstate migration growth and with a housing shortage, the demand for more homes inevitably pushes up house prices. Meanwhile, REIWA continues to report low listing numbers currently at about 3,250, well below long term averages. The supply pipeline looks bleak too with current annual dwelling approvals 24 percent below the 10-year average for houses and an astonishing 74 percent below for units. Clearly, we are not going to be building enough homes for to cater for our population gains anytime soon. In fact, WA is leading the nation in terms of time taken to build new homes. Yet Perth remains one of the most affordable places in the nation to buy property with a year-to-date median house price of $718,500, well behind Sydney’s $1,395,804, Melbourne’s $942,671 and Brisbane’s $899,474. We have nudged past Hobart’s $696,508 in recent months. And the percentage of average household income to service current average mortgages in Perth is 29.8 percent, way more affordable than Sydney’s 58.1 percent. Interest rates are predicted to fall later this year as the broader economy slows. It’s foreseeable that such a move will add further fuel to Perth’s already hot property market....
Mar 7, 2024
Women in Property
The Real Estate Institute of Australia is now led by a CEO, President and Deputy President all of whom are women. Six of the eight state and territory Real Estate Institutes have women CEOs. Most of the high-profile property commentators we see in the media are women. Women represent the majority of real estate practitioners across Australia. Property Managers, Sales Agents, Agency Principals, CEO’s, Heads of Franchise groups, Marketers, Executive Assistants, Leasing Agents, Buyer Agents, every conceivable role, women are at the forefront of our industry. In terms of the daily work of real estate practitioner, women tend to develop a rapport with a property owner from a genuinely empathetic approach and can have a better appreciation of the stresses associated with selling or renting a home. In these early exchanges, women also tend to take time to listen to the homeowner and feedback advice that is in tune with their property needs. For a long time, real estate practitioners have had a reputation of unethical behaviours in search of a commission. Thankfully, for a variety of reasons, this has necessarily changed and agents now enjoy strong endorsement from the broader community for the work they do. However, the remnants of these biases float about from time-to-time with such negative perceptions usually focused on slick haired, gold chained blokes who seem prepared to sell their grandmothers for a quid. Such views are almost always born out of ignorance with such stereotypes fast becoming a thing of the past. Yet if any such stigma remains, it is interesting that it doesn’t appear to apply to women real estate practitioners. And perceptions are powerful motivators. There is a perception that women are more trustworthy, more honest and better organised than men; important qualities for a real estate agent. Women are often touted as having a superior eye for detail in design and decor than their male counterparts do too. It is International Women’s Day this week and is a celebration of the empowerment of women across society, including the work force. On average, we still pay women less than men to do the same job, but not in real estate where an increasing number of the top selling agents are women. So, in celebration of International Women’s Day, congratulations to all women involved in real estate, may they continue to grow the professionalism of our industry to the benefit of us all....
Feb 29, 2024
Sorry, Disconnected
Sometimes, governments make decisions that have unintended consequences that impact the practical ways certain industries work. Canberra’s latest effort to over-regulate comes in the form of changes to the Fair Work Act that formalise an employee’s ‘right to disconnect’. The changes effectively mean an employee may refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from an employer outside of the employee’s normal working hours. As an employer, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an employee to ignore my phone call after hours, and unless it was a serious emergency, I wouldn’t be calling them after hours anyway. But, do we really need to make a law for it? For the real estate industry, the implications could be significant. The business of real estate – sales or property management – doesn’t happen during usual business hours. The laws extend to an employee (sales representative or property manager) refusing to monitor, read or respond to contact from a third party if the contact relates to their work. This includes contact from vendors, tenants, buyers and lessors. The obvious issues for national companies operating in Western Australia have been neatly overlooked by east coasters with the 3-hour time difference in summer could mean an effective workday starting in midday in Melbourne and Sydney and ending here two hours later. The changes could result in lost business if employees refuse to take urgent calls on a critical matter, such as a live sale negotiation. And what about a matter concerning safety at a property where property or person is at risk where a worker is required to manage such emergencies? The new laws are set to become law in July this year. After which, a tenant, needing assistance to get into their home after losing their keys at 6 pm can expect no reply from their property manager. A vendor, - in theory - wanting to know how Saturday’s home open went, can’t demand a response from their sales agent until Monday morning. As a result, many real estate employees will ignore the new laws and carry on providing service to their clients, tenants and buyers outside normal working hours. It won’t be until something goes wrong with the employer / employee relationship that challenges might arise. Employers could find themselves in strife with the Fair Work Commission if a disgruntled employee claims they were expected to work outside normal business hours without the right to disconnect. Employees working from home further muddies the water given these arrangements enable a degree of flexibility that transcends normal work hours anyway. Time will tell what impacts come from these laws that seem to be an answer to a question no one ever really asked....
Feb 22, 2024
Who’s to Blame?
Housing affordability is one of the most significant challenges of the modern era. Both house prices and rents are at record highs in Perth and across much of the nation with Perth’s median house and rent prices at around $600,000 and $600 per week respectively and growing faster than any other major Australian capital. We understand that the reason for these rises is down to simple economics, higher demand and short supply means prices and rents rise. Governments have done a spectacular job at shifting blame away from their own housing policy failures to investors, banks, real estate agents, local councils and developers. Yet, each of these sectors play a pivotal role in delivering the existing housing stock. Governments, on the other hand, through their taxation and other policies actively undermine housing supply. Property investors, mostly families that own a single investment property, provide 90 percent of all residential rental homes across Australia, housing millions of tenants. They obtain a moderate benefit by claiming some of the expenses stemming from that investment against their taxable income via negative gearing. However, once positively geared, investors pay tax on the property’s income and pay Capital Gains Tax if they make a profit upon selling. Banks, whilst not the most popular corporate citizens, provide the funding for property through mortgages. Banks also provide the funding for developers. Us real estate agents provide the services that help investors navigate residential tenancy laws, help people into home ownership and enable property transactions. Local councils often stymie property developments, especially increased density but they also adapt their planning laws over time, enhancing our urban environments. Developers provide housing on mass, adding density to areas where people aspire to live, work and recreate. Part of the reason property values are rising is the cost of construction, both labour and materials, has risen by around 40 percent in 3 years with end property values for finished product not at levels sufficient to support the viability of the project. Developers work to a margin and if the project fails the feasibility test, it doesn’t get built. That’s why new emerging density areas such as those around the new Metronet hubs will take several years to be developed; the cost of delivering the project is higher than the combined value of the housing produced. These cost constraints are not limited to construction costs. Land tax, holding costs, public art levies, developer levies, rates, headworks fees and stamp duty are additional cost burdens representing around 25 percent of the total development costs. This is where government ought to step in. If they were serious about housing supply, government would support the groups that provide the housing. Instead, state and federal governments either fail to provide the housing themselves (public housing waiting lists are at record highs) or set policies (stamp duty, tenancy law changes and land tax for example) that actively discourage additional housing supply. If it isn’t government, who is to blame for the housing crisis?...