BRIDESMAID ’BURBS
Good value off beaten track
Homebuyers could save themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars by looking just a few minutes up the road, with data revealing Queensland’s newest ‘bridesmaid’ suburbs.
With the pressure on homebuyers as cost of living continues to rise and interest rate hikes drain household budgets, analysis from PropTrack has identified the cheapest alternatives to more expensive suburbs offering a similar lifestyle for less.
And in the Cairns region, it could save you more than $500,000.
Buyers priced out of the region’s most expensive suburb, Port Douglas, should look 20km away to Mossman, where the median house price is a staggering 126 per cent cheaper. There, you can buy an affordable home and still make regular trips to the tourist hotspot.
The cheapest house on the market in Port Douglas is $699,000, but it is already under offer.
It has four bedrooms and sits on a 701sq m block.
The only other house on the market in Port Douglas is a stunning resort-style home that will go to auction on May 13.
But in Mossman, an entire block of units on 1011sq m sold for $735,000 last month.
The data identified the top ‘sister’ suburbs, sometimes referred to as bridesmaid suburbs, with the biggest difference in median sales prices over the 12 months to March 2023.
PropTrack defines a sister suburb as one located nearby to its more expensive neighbour.
“Everyone’s kind of a bridesmaid to someone else, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have good capital growth potential going into one,” PropTrack economic research director Cameron Kusher said, adding that buyers could save by looking in a cheaper suburb with similar amenities and lifestyle attributes to their suburb of choice.
But Mr Kusher said some suburbs had an obvious price differential because one was on the water and the other was not, or one had much larger lot sizes than the other.
Other factors can also come into play, such as whether it is prone to flooding, has more renters than homeowners, crime rates and more.
But if the fundamentals stack up, it could mean substantial savings.
Buyers could save $410,000 by looking at Yorkeys Knob rather than Palm Cove.
Both offer beach village vibes, but Yorkeys Knob is just 15 minutes from the heart of Cairns.
The analysis said buyers should also look to Tully Heads rather than South Mission Beach, with potential savings of $320,000.
The median house price in Tully Heads is $300,000, with sales data showing 12.1 per cent price growth over the past year.
It has sandy beaches fringed with palm trees but has not had the extraordinary price growth seen in South Mission Beach, where house values have soared 29.2 per cent in the past 12 months alone.
Further north, buyers could save $125,000 by buying in South Innisfail as opposed to Innisfail Estate, according to the research.
Meanwhile, back in Cairns, the analysis found that buyers could save $368,000 by buying in the often overlooked suburb of Manoora instead of soughtafter Edge Hill.
FNQ Buyers Agent founder Jennifer Smith said property prices in Cairns were primarily influenced by the geography of the region and the natural environment, including factors such as coastal scenery, proximity to the beach, high landscape values, environmental management, elevation, views, breezes and flood plain management.
She said elevated areas commanded higher values than lower-lying areas, adding that the wide price gaps between the suburbs could be explained due to factors such as more land supply (Mossman vs Port Douglas), flight paths (Yorkeys Knob vs Palm Cove) and elevation (Edge Hill vs Manoora).
“These are quite distinct locations, with most of Edge Hill being in elevated leafy areas backing on to rainforest, with significant natural amenity, and primarily residential and character zoned,” she said. “Manoora is geographically and demographically very different.
“It is significantly flood prone and features much higher residential density, concentrations of social housing and associated crime.”
Despite this, house values in Manoora have risen 4.9 per cent in 12 months to reach $411,250.
RE/MAX Cairns principal Ray Murphy said some of the cheaper suburbs were being targeted by southern buyers who either could not find or afford a property in some of the more sought-after suburbs.
This, he said, was changing the demographics in those suburbs. “A decade ago, there was all this stuff on forums saying don’t buy in the M and W suburbs, but now there are milliondollar houses in Mooroobool,” he said.