This tenth report in BCEC’s Focus on Western Australia series examines the important issue of costs of living in WA, and how real household living costs have changed in recent years.

This report shows that measures of severe housing stress have increased more for renters in WA than the rest of Australia. While most key workers have seen an increase, from 2013 to 2015, in the number of suburbs in which they can rent an affordable dwelling, the same cannot be said for those on the...

The cost of housing in Western Australia has been a recurrent theme in discussions in West Australian homes, businesses and the policy environment. A long held perception is that housing affordability in the state has spiralled out of control, with rents along with house prices escalating at a rate that many households find hard to...