Back in the 1980s, there was concern in the Townsville community about how Cairns, then experiencing rapid growth, would over-take Townsville to become the so-called capital of North Queensland. Obviously, that is no longer a possibility as Townsville appears to be surging while Cairns struggles to recover economically, as confirmed by residential lot development data released by OESR yesterday. I’ve copied and pasted the most interesting charts below:
Queensland Economy Watch 
Thanks for that link some interesting stuff there. At the OESR seminar in Cairns earlier this year they noted a stock overhang in Cairns. There is still a substantial stock of approvals despite low rates of new approvals. It is only in the last year that to stock in Townsville has surpasssed Cairns, where a large number of approvals also lapsed during the year. OESR also emphasised the operational works approval, where data is only quite recent, as indicating genuine commitment to proceed.
There is currently a substantial amount of residential development land for sale in Cairns by the receivers to collapsed developers with some of the larger land bank holdings. Regional comparisons are intersting between such as Mackay, Gladstone, and especially the Gold Coast with a rate of operational works approvals below even the low rate in Cairns.
KS, thanks, that’s useful info.
Sent from my iPhone