RECEIVERS have been called in for the developers of a prominent apartment project on Perth's western fringe.

Melbourne’s pub market will be tested again, with prominent Albert Park hangout The Beach Hotel up for sale, with a price of about $12 million.

Perth still holds the title of the tightest CBD office market in the world, however Brisbane has slipped down the rankings from number 2 to number 6, according to Colliers International’s biannual Global Office Real Estate Review Midyear 2008.

Living the good life next door to a golf course, and the allure of waterfront property, help explain the top performing suburbs in Queensland last year.

Macquarie Countrywide is expected to reap around $100 million from the portfolio sale of ten supermarket assets around Australia.

The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia said today's lift in the official cash rate by the Reserve Bank was not surprising but was disappointing.

REIWA President Rob Druitt said the WA property market was 'cool and stabilising' after the boom and did not require any further brakes applied to it.

"Another severe blow was dealt to home buyers in the December quarter 2007, with interest rate rises biting hard and home loan affordability deteriorating across Australia, except in Western Australia," says Noel Dyett, President of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, in Canberra.

Things got worse for General Property Trust this week, after petroleum giant BP confirmed it wants out of the Melbourne Central office building, once its lease expires in 2011.

Preliminary data by the Real Estate Institute of WA suggests Perth's housing market was flat-lining in the December Quarter of 2007, with no movement either up or down for the last three months of last year.

However, REIWA President Rob Druitt said he expected the data to show a small overall increase once final settlements are processed.

Real estate agents and property mangers are urging prospective tenants to be patient as the annual rental crush resurfaces in Perth.

President of the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, Rob Druitt, said seasonal factors and the low vacancy rate for accommodation was causing stress with many over worked agencies struggling to keep up with enquiries.

Specialist direct property funds management group Ray White Invest and private retail developer Blair Group today announced the joint acquisition of the Currambine Marketplace in Perth from Woolworths Ltd for in excess of $50m with proposed expansion plans to significantly increase the value of the property.

The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia has questioned the methodology and sales figure used in a recent international survey which claims Mandurah to be the most unaffordable city in Australia.

Perth house prices increased by 1.1 per cent in the December quarter 2007.

This follows a 1.3 per cent rise in the September quarter. Together these quarterly increases have clawed back all of the fall in prices experienced in the June quarter.

The Real Estate Institute of Australia, based in Canberra, released its annual summary of the residential and commercial real estate market on 19 December 2007, providing a unique insight into what the market had done over the 2006-07 financial year.

Residential rental vacancy rates have averaged an all-time low of 1.9 per cent across Australia for the past two and a half years, according to data published today in the Mortgage Choice/Real Estate Institute of Australia (Canberra), Market Facts report, September quarter edition.