Trends in lodgement figures indicate strong market

Landgate's August 2013 Business Activity Profile (BAP), released today, has recorded the highest document lodgement figures for the month of August in four years.

Landgate Acting Chief Executive Jodi Cant said the increases were across the board when compared with August last year.

"This included increases in total documents lodged, searches, survey plans and new lots created," she said.

Of those new lots created, strata lots accounted for 41.6 per cent. 

"Strata lots were up 43.3 per cent compared to August 2012," said Miss Cant. 

"We have been seeing an increasing trend in the development of smaller lots which are usually created by strata plans."

"One possible reason for this demand is that as land value increases, an easy way to manage property prices is to decrease the size of lots."

Miss Cant said mortgages and transfers also increased in August, by 10.6 and 4.1 per cent respectively in comparison to the same month last year.

"Another trend we're seeing is a greater number of mortgages being lodged monthly compared to transfers. We saw this again in August with 1,175 more mortgages lodged than transfers," she said.

"This supports recent comments from the property industry that we are operating in a competitive finance environment, which is producing some of the best mortgage deals in years."

The BAP covers all property related documents lodged within Landgate and is a barometer of the state of the property market in Western Australia.

The August 2013 BAP is available on Landgate's website. It provides the daily average of all documents lodged, with sections detailing transfers, mortgages, caveats, searches and other categories of property related documents.

Landgate is Western Australia's primary source of land information and geographic data, providing the accuracy government, business and individuals rely on.