Page 15 - Tropic Magazine Issue 28

TROPIC • ECONOMY

HomeBuilder grant

$15,000 grants available
Includes renovations
Contracts must be signed by
March 31

In December, the Federal Government’s
HomeBuilder scheme was scaled back
from $25,000 to $15,000 for owner-
occupied new builds and renovations
worth at least $150,000.
The program is scheduled to be wound up
at the end of March.
In the Cairns region, it has led to a rush
on vacant land purchases and a spike in
building approvals.
For the year to September, trend building
approvals in Cairns hit a two-and-a-half
year high, up 54 per cent on the same
period the previous year.
Vacant land sales also shot up five-fold to
reach a post-GFC high and there is now
a distinct shortage of house blocks ready
to build on.
As new homes become occupied,
pressure on the tight rental vacancy rate,
which sits at 0.8% for houses, is expected
to ease.

Crunching the numbers
The median trend house price increased by about 4.8% on pre-COVID
levels, to sit at $431,000.

The median trend price for vacant land dropped to around $200,000
but only because of cheaper land sales in the Southern Corridor of
Cairns as opposed to reducing land values.

The weighted average median rent for houses increased modestly
from $430 to $435 per week.

Source: Herron Todd White CairnsWatch, November 2020

15 • tropicnow.com.au