Leafy lifestyle beats property downturn
IN A struggling market, leafy Whitfield has emerged as the only Cairns suburb to record double digit growth this year.
Recent data revealed in the latest Queensland Market Monitor showed the Cairns house market had retracted about 1.2 per cent over the past 12 months due to the fall in the volume of sales.
The unit market performance was subdued as the annual median unit price fell 3.4 per cent, to $225,000.
LJ Hooker Cairns Edge Hill principal Ross Moller said while Whitfield’s growth was impressive it was skewed by the sale of a number of premium properties.
Houses in Whitfield had an annual median price of $552,500 in September, offering proximity to the airport and the CBD area.
“There’s been quite a few sell for over a million dollars and several in the $800,000s,” Mr Moller said.
“The prices have probably gone down in the lower category.
“Cairns is a very odd sort of town with million dollar houses and $300,000 houses in the same suburbs. Edge Hill, Whitfield and Brinsmead are perfect examples, as is Redlynch with the acreage out towards the Valley.”
He said one of the most positive trends of late was that the high-end properties were increasingly being bought by local residents.
“People think they’re cheap at the moment and that it is a good time to buy those houses,” Mr Moller said.
The QMM report also revealed “less than optimal employment market indicators have had a negative impact on the performance of the sales market, with property prices for both houses and units following a downward path for the past 12 months”.
However, medium-term data showed the house market grew 12.8 per cent as the median price gained $46,000 for the past five years.
Median rents have also increased $20 a week since September 2017.
“The good news was that median days on market and median vendor discount has not changed significantly for the past year,” the report also revealed.
“A house in Cairns required 58 days to reach a sale and a negotiated discount of 5.3 per cent in August 2018.”