Affordability pressures may be driving a boom in regional residential markets across WA, but new data suggests the State’s farming sector is facing a very different property reality.

While regional housing markets continue to surge, agricultural land values across WA have fallen 24.7 per cent quarter on quarter, according to the latest Q1 2026 Rural Property Sales Dashboard released by Digital Agricultural Services.

The report found Peel-Harvey farmland values fell 37.1 per cent, while the Wheatbelt dropped 32.2 per cent and the South West declined 23.8 per cent.

DAS co-founder Sarah Gorman said climate events and rainfall reliability were increasingly shaping how rural land was valued.

“Climate has always been baked into how farmers and buyers think about land. What’s changed is that we can now put hard numbers to it, in near real time,” she said.

“Buyers and lenders no longer have to rely on intuition. The data is there, and it’s moving the market.”

The data indicates higher-rainfall and lower-risk farming regions continue to command stronger per-hectare prices.

However, Country Downs Station in WA’s Kimberley struggled to find a buyer before selling earlier this year, despite being described as “the best value cattle country in the world” because of its assured wet season.

It was relisted between March and May 2025 after earlier failed attempts to sell, and remained on the market through late 2025 before finally selling in early 2026.

Yougawalla Pastoral Company was on the market for about two years before selling, while Gnaraloo Station changed hands earlier this year after being listed in April 2025 and spending about 12 months on the market.

The agricultural outlook is in stark contrast with WA’s booming regional residential market.

A separate Cotality Regional Market Update released this month found some of the nation’s fastest-growing regional housing markets were in WA.

The report showed Albany rents climbed 15.2 per cent annually, Busselton recorded quarterly dwelling value growth of 7.5 per cent, Albany values rose 7.2 per cent over the quarter and Karratha posted annual growth of 26.4 per cent.

Cotality head of research Australia Gerard Burg said affordability remained a central driver for so-called treechangers.

“Internal migration patterns are continuing to favour regional areas where buyers can find greater value and a different pace of life,” he said.

Nowhere is the split clearer than in the South West, which remains one of WA’s hottest residential markets under the Cotality data while simultaneously recording a 23.8 per cent decline in farmland values, according to the Digital Agricultural Services dashboard.