Best 20 Real Estate Agents In Wittenoom [2024]

Which Real Estate Agent's Best Wittenoom Agents

Good agent selection means you increase your chances dramatically of a higher property price and an easy, quick sale. We can calculate a shortlist of top agents through our agent comparison tool.

To start selling, it's best to speak with a top-performing local real estate agent who has experience with properties like yours and can work well with you.

A suitable agent should be focused on selling property near yours (bonus for the same street!), experienced at selling property like yours, have a strong history of successful negotiations, and possess a personality that works well with potential buyers and yourself. Most agents have a particular focus, e.g. houses within a certain area, price bracket, and a ranking within their office. We do everything we can to identify these agents for you.

What To Pay Your Wittenoom Agent

The lowest fee should not be your top requirement in an agent. Rather, you should look for agents that can strongly back up their fee structure and commission rate.

An agent with a strong sales background in selling quickly and for a higher price will often cover their fee and more. Receive a shortlist of top agents in the local Wittenoom area from our agent comparison tool to sell confidently.

Wittenoom is one of the more expensive suburbs in Australia when it comes to real estate agent commission rates. Experience has shown us that real estate agent commission rates in Wittenoom average around 3.5%.

Compared to other areas in Australia, the commission rate in Wittenoom is higher - remember that you can negotiate with your real estate agent about their fees and commissions, as well as inclusions on marketing fees.

Use the real estate agent fee calculator below to determine how much it may cost to sell your property in Western Australia. Amounts calculated include 10% GST, but exclude other costs an agent may charge such as advertising and marketing.

More Information

Wittenoom Suburb Overview

Wittenoom is a ghost town 1,106 kilometres north-north-east of Perth in the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It is the site of Australia’s greatest industrial disaster.

The area around Wittenoom was mainly pastoral until the 1930s when mining began in the area. By 1939, major mining had begun in Yampire Gorge, which was subsequently closed in 1943 when mining began in Wittenoom Gorge. In 1947 a company town was built, and by the 1950s it was the Pilbara’s largest town. During the 1950s and early 1960s Wittenoom was Australia’s only supplier of blue asbestos. The town was shut down in 1966 due to unprofitability and growing health concerns from asbestos mining in the area.

Today, eight residents still live in the town, which receives no government services. In December 2006, the Government of Western Australia announced that the town’s official status would be removed, and in June 2007, Jon Ford, the Minister for Regional Development, announced that the townsite had officially been degazetted. The town’s name was removed from official maps and road signs and the Shire of Ashburton is able to close roads that lead to contaminated areas.

Wittenoom was named by Lang Hancock after Frank Wittenoom, his partner in the nearby Mulga Downs Station. The land around Wittenoom was originally settled by Wittenoom’s brother, politician Sir Edward Horne Wittenoom. By the late 1940s there were calls for a government townsite near the mine, and the Mines Department recommended it be named Wittenoom, advising that adoption of this name was strongly urged by the local people. The name was approved in 1948, but it was not until 2 May 1950 that the townsite was officially gazetted. In 1951 the name was changed to Wittenoom Gorge at the request of the mining company, and in 1974 it was changed back to Wittenoom. The mine closed in 1966, and the townsite was officially abolished by gazettal in March 2007.

In 1917 the Mines Department first recorded the presence of blue asbestos in the Hamersley Ranges. Hancock discovered Wittenoom Gorge in the early 1930s, and in 1937 started mining crocidolite from Yampire Gorge. By 1940, he had managed to produce 364 tonnes of asbestos. Originally asbestos was taken from the hillside, crushed up in a tin shed Hancock had built on his property, put in sacks and taken by horse to the docks, 240 km away in Point Samson and sold for around ?5 for a 100-pound bag. It took another five or six years for it to become an economic proposition.

Until the Second World War asbestos was mostly imported from South Africa and Canada. The Australian market for asbestos before the Second World War was worth $1 million a year, and there was export potential. Hancock had promising talks with the British, who were desperate to use asbestos as filters in gas masks, and his partners had negotiations with Johns Manville in the United States. When the Second World War came asbestos was in high demand for use in tanks, planes, battleships, helmets and gasmasks. In 1943 the mine was sold to CSR Limited subsidiary, Australian Blue Asbestos Pty Ltd, where Hancock remained as manager until 1948.

In 1946, the Yampire Gorge mine was closed and subsequently Wittenoom Gorge mine was opened in the same year. Production to 1956 is estimated at 590,000 tons of ore from which about 20,000 tons of asbestos were recovered. In 1947 the town of Wittenoom was built to service the nearby asbestos mine. It was built ten kilometres from the mine and mill as there was not a suitable area available to expand the original residential settlement. By 1951 the town had 150 houses and a population of over 500.

In 1948 CSR took over the asbestos project at Wittenoom as the parent company of ABA. From 1950 until the early 1960s Wittenoom was Australia’s only supplier of asbestos with 161,000 tonnes being mined from 1943 to 1966. In an internal report recommending the mine’s closure in 1966, one of CSR’s own executives admitted that “…no thorough investigation of the deposit at Wittenoom was made”. For most of the years CSR mined asbestos, the operation lost money. It struggled into profit for the five years from 1956, and then only by making its workforce work two and even three shifts a day. When the mine closed it had an accumulated debt of around $2.5 million.

In 1944, Mines Inspector Adams reported on the dust menace at Wittenoom and discussed the need to reduce dust levels, and the WA Assistant State Mining Engineer reported on the dangers of the dust being generated at Wittenoom. The first case of asbestosis at Wittenoom occurred in 1946, although it was not conclusively diagnosed until much later. In 1948, Dr Eric Saint, a Government Medical Officer, wrote to the head of the Health Department of Western Australia. He warned of the dust levels in the mine and mill, the lack of extractors and the dangers of asbestos and risk of asbestosis, and advised that the mine would produce the greatest crop of asbestosis the world has ever seen. He also advised the Wittenoom Mine Management that asbestos is extremely dangerous and that men exposed would contract chest disease inside six months.

Dr Jim McNulty, who was working for the Health Department of WA, provided a first hand account of the work conditions he observed when he visited Wittenoom to do a clinical examination in 1959. He reported:

Between 1977 and 1992, eight studies involving air monitoring were carried out by the Health Department of WA and other authorities. There were a number of shortcomings with these studies, which meant the debate over risk to residents was not conclusively settled. Reports by the Environmental Protection Authority provide detail on the extent of the contamination. Inspection reports indicated that asbestos fibres were present in some quantity in almost every area of the town.