South for sales, city agents told
CELEBRITY real estate expert Andrew Winter says attracting interstate buyers could be the key to Townsville’s property market recovering.
Mr Winter was in Townsville yesterday to host a lunch at The Ville Resort and Casino, where he spoke to real estate agents about the benefits of print advertising.
Mr Winter said interstate buyers priced out of capital city markets such as Sydney and Melbourne could provide increased demand for property.
“My belief for growth in somewhere like this is, I believe, Townsville is an area where as a city it has a lot to offer interstate Australians as a lifestyle choice, whether for retirement or young people,” he said. “Obviously employment is the difficult thing but if you have the ability to live away from a big city due to age or working for yourself where you then don’t need to be down south, that is where your fresh housing blood will be coming in from.”
Mr Winter also visited Townsville to host a breakfast and speak to builders about Lendlease’s Elliot Springs satellite city development.
Lendlease regional development manager for Elliot S p r i n g s Simon Walker said it was a wonderful o p p o r t u n i t y for all to hear from the w e l l - k n o w n property expert at the exclusive local builder’s event.
“Andrew’s knowledge of the latest home design trends will be of great advantage for the builders of Elliot Springs,” he said.
Mr Winter said while Townsville’s property market had some promising signs in sales volume, it was still not in recovery phase and it could be some time before prices returned to peak level.
“It’s all about the property cycle clock and Townsville is an area that probably stopped growing nearly 10 years ago,” he said. “They were boom prices, so for a market to move into recovery value wise, you have to get back into values that were at the peak before, and that hasn’t happened yet, as far as I can gather.
“You’re not in recovery yet in respect of value but what does seem to be in recovery ... is the volume, the turnover and the transactions.
“Now if they are starting to gain strength and people are moving and selling and buying in the market, then that’s a signal that your market will eventually recover value wise, but it can take a long time.”