Crippling accommodation shortages are driving regional employers to buy houses so staff have a place to live.
While many stakeholders are confident the trend will bolster communities in the long term, others fear it will put more pressure on those who are already struggling.
In Esperance, on the state's south coast, the council chief executive was this week directed to look at buying two or three properties to ease housing issues in the short term.
They were also directed to develop a tender for building homes on three blocks, at West Beach and Castletown, in the longer term.
Shire president Ian Mickel said housing was a major recruitment barrier given the town's vacancy rate often neared zero per cent.
"We have people applying for senior management jobs and their first question is always, 'Is there any accommodation?'" he said.
Other employers also offer housing for their staff, including Southern Ports, which has owned four properties in the town for some time, and Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation, which has purchased five properties in the past year.
Esperance real estate agent Paul Blackman said he had never seen such high demand from businesses for residential homes during his 27 years in the job.
"It's another group of buyers that have entered the market that we haven't had previously," he said.
Real Estate Institute of WA chief executive Cath Hart said the pattern was occurring across the state as vacancy rates reached their lowest level in nearly 42 years in some areas.
But the trend has some concerned.
'People can't afford it'
Esperance Care Services chief executive Chris Meyer said employers were doing what they had to do to secure workers but he was worried it would negatively impact low-income earners and those outside the workforce.
He said the demographic was already doing it tough, with a big spike in requests for emergency relief after his care provider reopened its doors on January 10.
The town also has 86 homes set aside through the Government Regional Officer Housing Program, reserved for government workers such as police officers and teachers.
Mr Meyer said employers buying up available homes for their staff could make the pool of remaining rentals smaller for everyone else.
"I can't see any other result in the short term," he said.
"It puts increasing upward pressure on rent and people can't afford it."
He said overcrowded housing had become a much bigger issue in Esperance in recent times, which led to higher rates of domestic violence and abuse.
He said the shire and the state should urgently be looking at funding more public housing.
'Vibrant regional economies'
University of Western Australia head of social sciences Amanda Davies said providing housing for skilled workers would take them out of the rental sector and free up properties in the long term.
"Esperance already is quite a tightly competitive market being impacted by people seeking a second home, as well as general growth in the area," Professor Davies said.
"[Further housing demand] is coming at a time that's not unexpected, but it's not ideal.
"While it may cause us shorter-term supply issues, longer term, it will help to stabilise things in terms of both the skilled labour and the rental market."
Ms Hart said employers building homes for staff would relieve supply pressures.
She also said bringing skilled workers to town strengthened regional businesses and had many flow-on benefits.
"When you have workers who live in the town you need school teachers, you need doctors, you need hairdressers, you need tradespeople," she said.
"And that helps create those vibrant regional economies."
But Professor Davies said low-income housing shortages were acutely felt in regional areas and believed there needed to be a much larger-scale, long-term approach to fixing the problem.
"I think there is an increasing voice from businesses and local government leaders across regional Western Australia really calling for assistance in leadership on how we're going to manage this problem," she said.
"[We are] just really needing that response now from the West Australian government."
A Department of Communities spokesperson said the state government was investing $2.4 billion in housing and homelessness, which included about 3,300 social dwellings and refurbishments and maintenance work to "thousands more".
Planning for a low-cost housing project is underway in Esperance after the shire pitched the idea to Development WA, the state government's land development agency.
It has appointed urban planners to complete a planning analysis on a 1.27ha block on Victoria Street, Nulsen.
Esperance Shire CEO Shane Burge said the state government owned other parcels of land around the town and hoped to see it look at developing them as well.
