Real Estate Institute of WA is appealing changes to stamp duty regulations that has further discouraged potential buyers from purchasing homes.

Currently, one in three buyers are required to pay stamp duty for homes priced above US$725,000. This is in comparison to the 2006-07 period when only one on four buyers were required to shell out for stamp duty for homes costing more than US$500,000.

REIWA president Alan Bourke is asking the government to rethink the stamp duty system. He is suggesting that buyers only pay stamp duty on the trade-up value of a property after selling their own home. "If the idea behind this stamp duty is revenue-raising, then it is counterproductive because it is preventing mobility," he told The West Australian. "I think people are quietly furious every time they have to write a check for stamp duty to the state government."

He added that in comparison to stamp duties, real estate agent's fees were not high. One example he cited was a US$1 million property which would be charged a US$22,000 agent's fee and a US$42,000 stamp duty fee.

Initially, when the stamp duty practice began in the 1980s, it was to charge people who could afford real estatee properties worth an estimated 10 times the average value. Since then house prices have gone up and the stamp duty still applies to home purchases worth less than twice the US$480,000 median value of a home.