Cairns suburbs topping new housing supply in 2024

Prospective buyers have less chance of finding affordable new builds in Cairns than they do in Sydney and Melbourne, shock new research reveals. See the suburbs to search in.

Prospective buyers have less chance of finding affordable new builds in Cairns than they do in Sydney and Melbourne, shock new research reveals.

The devastating findings by PRD research show there are two affordable suburbs among the top five with ready-to-sell unit stock, compared to 12 in Melbourne and 14 in Sydney.

The affordability was based on the suburb’s unit price relative to the relevant city’s median.

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More units within areas with established amenities are expected to be the norm.

But the issue isn’t just confined to Cairns, with PRD finding only nine Brisbane suburbs with affordable unit stock set for sale this year and five on the Gold Coast compared to their relative medians.

PRD chief economist Dr Asti Mardiasmo said “what we found is if you do want to go to areas that have the most ready-to-sell stock planned, you have to be prepared to pay a premium.”

The data, which looks at suburbs with housing supply planned this year, uncovered 1778 homes in the top five suburb results in Cairns, 1700 of which is coming out of Trinity Park where the $1bn Half Moon Bay Cairns retirement village project is set to begin construction in September.

The suburb unit median price is a massive 131 per cent higher than that of the LGA after 37.5 per cent growth this year. The project will see development of waterfront land south of Trinity Park into a six-star 300-room resort, 1700 apartments and a retirement village. Construction completion date is set for 2030.

Cairns City, where 55 units are planned in 2024, has a median that’s 42.6 per cent higher than the LGA. The major development there is the $35m Apogee Apartments at 157-159 Lake Street and 14 Florence Street in Cairns City – a 13 storey mixed used project where 30 of the 55 units will be three-bedders. The start date was March this year, with completion set for July 2025.

Cairns North has 12 apartments in the pipeline – and is one of two suburbs with incoming housing supply priced below the Cairns LGA median. It is -3.8 per cent lower, with the new supply coming out of a $6.9m social housing project at 261 Lake Street – a three-storey building with six one-bedders and six two-bedders due to begin construction at the end of 2024, with completion pencilled in for November 2025.

Gordonvale was priced -5.3 per cent below the LGA median and will see eight townhouses built this year at the Cutters Rise Estate duplexes on Draper Road, commencing in October.

The fifth suburb with planned supply for Cairns commencing 2024 was Smithfield where there will be three more units added.

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Jon Raven, the mayor of Queensland’s fastest growing city – Logan, has 7,000 dwellings in the development pipeline and says it’s important to not just provide the “classic Australian dream of the quarter acre block” but also ensure “people who want a more affordable option get to have it near our already built-up areas around public transport”.

“During a housing crisis, the temptation is just to build houses as far as the eye can see, but houses require jobs, and places you can go shopping and have a high quality of life. You can’t just have a dormitory city. We know that doesn’t work any more, people don’t want to drive 30 minutes to a restaurant, they want 10 minutes. So we want to make sure that we’re actually providing quality of life.”

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Originally published as Cairns suburbs topping new housing supply in 2024