Thursday 14 January

Signs that Port Douglas holiday home sales are clawing back

The holiday home market suffered during the global financial crisis but activity is now starting to recover, according to real estate agents in the country's top holiday destinations.

Activity is also expected to pick up during 2010, with a lack of stock and availability of finance likely to increase the number of holiday homes put on the market.

Alan Crossman, principal of Ray White Real Estate in Port Douglas, says the activity during 2009, and over the Christmas period, has begun to pick up.  "It's been a good year. Up here in North Queensland people escape the cold, and it's been good through Christmas all around. This last year has been good for homes and private villas, because people who may normally have gone overseas have decided to stay."

Last year, Crossman said demand had dropped off, with Port Douglas feeling the effects of the financial crisis faster than most other holiday areas.

"From our standpoint, 2009 was generally speaking a very good year. We don't know yet for 2010, but it looks quite promising."

Editors comments: This region has also had to contend with several large developers either delaying the start of their developments to ride out the GFC or in the more drastic cases actually going out of business and having to auction off any remaining unsold properties because of the global financial crisis. The latter had a detrimental affect on property values through late 2008 and into 2009 but now that these bargains have washed through the market, the current environment appears to be clawing it's way back both with holiday investments and the local real estate market.  Let's hope this improvement can battle its way through another interest rate rise next month. This may hold things up before we see any further market strengthening throughout 2010 but who knows?  It's going to be an interesting time !