A house in Kambalda East, Western Australia, sold for $8,000 in June 2023, making it the cheapest sale in PropTrack’s 2023 list reported by PerthNow. The figure describes one specific transaction—not the typical cost of a liveable Australian home. The same 31 December 2023 report also carried a forecast for inflation and interest rates in 2024; that outlook was a prediction made at the time, not current market guidance.
What sold for $8,000 in Western Australia?
PerthNow reported that 14 George Cowcill Street in Kambalda East sold for $8,000 in June 2023. The three-bedroom, one-bathroom house was built in 1969 and had been home to a hoarder, according to the report. Kambalda East is in Western Australia’s Goldfields-Esperance region, about 631 kilometres east of Perth; the article gave the town’s approximate population as 802. These are details reported in December 2023, not a current listing or current town profile. PerthNow’s report attributed its 2023 cheapest-sales list to PropTrack, REA Group’s realestate.com.au.
The ranking was for the sales identified in that 2023 dataset, not a guarantee that no cheaper transaction occurred elsewhere or since. Its next entries were a $19,000 house in Coolgardie in June, a $19,000 lot in Coober Pedy in April, a $23,000 sale in Mount Magnet in April, and a $26,000 lot in Andamooka in October. The list mixes houses, land and different towns, so its prices are not directly comparable measures of housing affordability.
What does the $8,000 sale tell buyers?
It establishes that one older house sold for that amount in one remote regional market in June 2023. It does not establish what a buyer would pay now, whether the property was habitable, what repairs or other costs it needed, or what comparable homes cost. A low sale price alone is not a complete measure of the cost of owning a property: the report does not provide a condition assessment, renovation estimate or ongoing-cost breakdown for this house.
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For personal-finance decisions, treat the figure as a historical individual sale rather than a usable budget benchmark. A buyer assessing a specific low-priced property would need current listing and sale information, a property-condition assessment, and a clear account of any costs associated with the purchase and ownership. The PerthNow article does not supply those details for this address.
How did the reported sale compare with Australia’s 2023 market?
PerthNow reported that PropTrack measured national house and unit price growth of 5.24% in 2023. The story also attributed average Australian house prices of $925,400 in 2023 and $678,500 in 2020—a rise of more than 36%—to the ABS. These are historical figures reproduced by the December 2023 report, not current prices. The $8,000 Kambalda East transaction is an individual sale, while the national numbers describe broader market measures; they should not be treated as like-for-like comparisons.
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The report linked price pressure partly to post-COVID immigration and constraints on construction, including higher costs and reduced capacity. Those were explanations offered in the article, not independently established causal findings here.
What was the outlook for 2024?
Commonwealth Bank chief economist Stephen Halmarick said, “Inflation is decelerating in Australia as well, but at a slower pace than some other nations,” as quoted by PerthNow. The report said he forecast inflation returning within its target bracket by late 2024 and rate cuts beginning from September 2024. Both were forecasts in a story published on 31 December 2023, not predictions that should be presented as current guidance. The article names one economist’s outlook despite the headline’s plural “experts,” and the available account does not establish whether the forecast came to pass.
The other end of the 2023 price list
PerthNow also reported a $76 million sale in May 2023 for Leura, at 24 Victoria Road in Bellevue Hill, Sydney. The article described the 1891 heritage-listed property as having eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms and six car spaces, and attributed the expensive-home list to CoreLogic/PropTrack. Leura and the Kambalda East house are radically different properties in different markets; their prices illustrate the range of reported transactions, not a meaningful national value range or a comparison of equivalent homes.
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