REIQ expert warns Cairns property sellers to adjust expectations amid cooling market

Tom Quaid is the REIQ zone chair for Cairns. OPINION It is a very different market today than the one we had six months ago, and certainly a very different place than we would have predicted with our crystal balls this time last year. After years of acceleration with the occasional brief pause, it feels like the market has stopped, taken a deep breath and is back to walking rather than running the way it has ever since it got its Covid push in late 2020. Aerial view of Cairns. Now the problem with slowing to a walking pace when everyone is used to running, is that quite often you’ll find a gap starts to develop, and we are seeing that gap now between buyers and sellers. Not necessarily in pricing, but certainly in the sense of urgency, and ultimately timing. Buyers have been conditioned for years now, that waiting will cost you money. Time after time, if you missed out on one house, then not only would you be unlikely to find another like it any time soon, but by the time you did you’d be paying more for the same thing. MORE NEWS: Mansion price slashed by $2m as sellers ‘rethink market conditions’ Building costs set to soar 9pc a year, warns developer World’s biggest: House built f...