Location Profile - Geraldton WA

Geraldton is the first regional town heading north from Perth (4 hours).

When researching Geraldton we found that as a large regional town in WA it was grossly undervalued in property prices in comparison to other regional towns in WA, Perth and the remainder of Australia. This combined with:

• A large population growth, 5^th fastest population growth for a regional town in Australia
• Coastal location
• Multiple major industries supporting employment
• Many major projects underway

The population growth was high due to natural births and an increasing trend to move to the area from other WA areas to obtain work. The major industries in the area combined with many new major projects supplied Geraldton with large quantities of new jobs available paying attractive salaries therefore attracting new families to the town.

There is also an increase in transient population, whereby people would move to Geraldton to work on projects for a two or three year contract or fly in, fly out employees. The Greenough shire (Geraldtons shire) has restricted these numbers to major employers as this can be detrimental in the long term, as a town can build and develop in size to accommodate for the influx of people only to be then left as an empty town when all the contracts finish and the residents again move onto the next town. This management by the shire has seen sustainable growth of Geraldton as a whole.

The major industries that support employment ongoing are:

• Cray Fishing
• Pearl Mining
• Tourism
• Fishing
• Farming
• Mining
• Construction

Having multiple industries supporting a regional town is crucial in our research because if one industry were to fold for some reason, the town can still easily survive financially with the other remaining industries. A prime example of this is Bali and the bombings… once this occurred and tourism completely halted, Bali was crippled financially from its major income source. The same can be said for mining only regional towns in Australia… although we are seeing good times in the Mining Boom, when this ends, the owners of investment properties in these towns will suffer immensely.

As well as the industries above, Geraldtons economy is supported by multiple mines in the area, with the biggest being Mount Magnet approx 250klm inland from Geraldton. The latest mining approval is the Oakajee mine approx 20klm north of town. The approval was given last year for the mine which includes a new port for exporting.

We purchased in three areas within Geraldton during 2004/2005:

• Brand new house and land packages for $250k - $265k which later sold for $420k - $480k
• Cheap houses for $90k - $130k which later sold for $200k - $240k
• Land for $60k - $90k which later sold for $85k - $160k

The Geraldton property market began to soften in 2007 but is currently seeing more fruitful times with a solid increase in property transactions occurring. Property prices don’t seem to have increased but faster turnaround times will see an increase in prices again shortly.

On a final note, Geraldton topped Australia’s highest capital growth location in 2005 and second highest location the following year (behind Collie WA, which is exactly where we were buying). Looks like research pays off…