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Welcome to the Baseline Business & Finance Wrap!

If you're a business owner in Perth, this is your weekly no-fluff update on the numbers that matter:

📊 Markets – ASX, interest rates & commodity prices

🏡Property – Perth house prices & rental trends,

💰 Business Finance – Lending insights & smart money moves

🤣 Dad Jokes – Because finance shouldn’t be that serious

We’ll keep it short, sharp, and packed with value.

Property

• Would you believe it? Listings fell. Again. Perth’s residential market has officially become a game of musical chairs — except there are fewer and fewer chairs, and everyone’s getting crankier.
• We’re now down to 2,905 properties, a drop of 76 for the week and well below where we sat this time last year.
• Median prices are holding at $800,000 for houses and $555,000 for units, but with this level of scarcity, you’d think they’d be galloping. Rentals keep nudging upward too — the average house rent is now $690 per week.
• For those doing the math at home: rent on a median house sets you back about $2,760/month. A mortgage on a $640k loan (80% of the median house price) at current rates? Around $2,933/month interest-only. It’s basically a dead heat. Granted, you had to come up with around $200k upfront to buy the house in the first place.
• Hotspots this week: East Perth, Perth, Baldivis, and Como. Affordability and convenience are clearly still king.

Markets

• The ASX had a slight pullback, down 1.1% for the week, but remains over 11% higher year-on-year. Not bad for a market still digesting tariffs, tech tantrums, and analyst downgrades.
• Iron ore — WA’s unofficial currency — surged another 2.6% and is back over US$104/t. That’s music to the ears of Treasurers in both Perth and Canberra.
• Gold flexed hard with a 3.3% rise, proving that the “safe haven” asset can still throw a bit of volatility our way. Bitcoin, meanwhile, sulked in the corner, basically flat for the week. Not a disaster, but not exactly keeping pace with gold’s glitter.
• Copper? Down 0.6%, but still hanging around the long-term averages.

Rates

• Nothing too exciting here. The cash rate holds at 3.60%, and short-term money markets barely budged.
• The chatter around a November cut has cooled slightly, with odds dropping from 100% a few weeks back to around 75% now.
• For now, your benchmarks should be:
• 🏡 Home loans → mid-5s
• 💼 Business loans → 6% or under (depending on structure and risk)

Baseline Success Story of the Week

• Last week, we assisted a client in undertaking a wholesale debt consolidation. There was debt at ugly rates around every corner we looked.
• We've cleaned it up, reduced the rates by up to 9% in certain scenarios, and encouraged the client to keep up the same overall repayment amounts as before (leading to the overall debt being cleared quicker).

Bad/Dad Jokes of the week

• I changed a lightbulb in the attic a few days ago. It was the high light of my week.
• This weekend, I asked a bartender for a Rum and Coke. He said, "Is Pepsi ok?". I said, "No, I definitely prefer Rum."
• 90% of bald men still own a comb. They just can't part with it.

Finally, for this weeks Meme series "If your bank was honest..." (I've been asked what "Shabadabeebop" means a lot. Exactly. No one knows.)

Need Help Navigating Finance? Let’s Chat.

Whether it’s commercial property finance, business lending, or investment strategy, I’m here to help you make the right move.

Let’s have a quick chat — call 08 6108 3925

Email - brad@baselinefin.com.au

Or just reply to this newsletter—I read every message.