GREEN SHOO TS SPROUTING AS CONFIDENCE GRO WS

GREEN shoots are forming Townsville’s property market confidence returns to the city.

For the first time in seven years, Herron Todd White’s property clock has advanced Townsville from the bottom of the market to the start of recovery phase.

Townsville median house prices have officially started to rebound from the decline that had been generally evident since 2010 and are now about 3 per cent higher than this time last year.

While the market remains weak when compared with capital cities and even Cairns, director at Herron Todd White Townsville Darren Robins said the region would see continuous growth over the next 12 to 24 months.

“When we use the term ‘ green shoots’ we mean that the market has turned a corner and stopped dragging along at the bottom,” he said.

“What we’re seeing now is a recovery phase and for us, it starts with more positive conversations. So, for example, we had the whole will we, won’t we get the stadium and then all of a sudden it became a reality.

“We’re also looking at the number of job ads and the figures we got show that they have spiked in the last 12 months. That obviously means that people are in as looking for employees letting them go.

“So all that coupled with more positive news such as the stadium, the council doing some really good things with their riverfront development, and the upswing in the mining sector, will all have positive impacts on the city.”

Herron Todd White, Australia’s largest independent property valuation and advisory group, is one of the nation’s most trusted sources for market updates.

“The raw numbers say that we’ve had a slight upswing in our median house prices, so we’ve had a decrease in stock on market which means properties are selling or homeowners aren’t madly listing their properties in the hope that the market will improve,” Mr Robins said.

“So what we really want to see is no retraction for a period of time and find some stability.

“The crystal ball would say that we got quite a bit of stock of mortgagees to get through but once we wash through that, which will probably be 12 months to two years, we should see significant growth in house prices.

“So those not in a rush to sell, I would definitely recommend hanging on to their properties for now.” as opposed to