Could massive offshore gas expansion make this Kimberley coast town the next WA boom town?
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While the bulk of Western Australia’s recent successes on the property front have been in the Pilbara region, Kimberley has been making a name for itself of late, and Derby is most certainly one to watch there.
What it’s got going for it, says Crawford Realty sales consultant Morgan Crawford, is a whole slew of government and resource related projects that are in the pipeline.
“There are quite a few government projects that have been proposed – a new prison for example. And if you have a look at RP Data you’ll notice that the rental market has tightened up hugely, and rental prices have jumped up 10–15% in the last six months,” he says.
Fuelling this rental growth is an extremely low vacancy rate. In fact, Derby’s vacancy rate has now reached 0% according to SQM Research’s June figures.
As well as the construction of the $150m Derby Regional Prison, Derby’s property market is expected to benefit from the expansion of the Kimberley diamond and iron ore mines on Koolan and Cockatoo Islands, the proposed $550m Deep Water Port Facility at Point Torment, the proposed Browse Basin Gas Project and resource giant Inpex's $25bn Ichthys LNG venture.
