Tropical North Queensland: How this popular tourist destination became an investors' paradise

We’re used to thinking of Tropical North Queensland as a laid-back, languid kind of place, but with a surge of interstate migration and a huge investment in infrastructure, it’s fast outpacing its leisurely reputation.

Take a walk around Cairns, for instance.

There, the Cairns Convention Centre is undergoing a massive $176 million renovation and extension, the $28 million revitalisation of the esplanade is finished and the Boardwalk Social by Crystalbrook, a new 350-seat food, drink and entertainment hub, is buzzing.

Nearby, the city has Australia’s first newly built aquarium in the last 18 years, with room for events of up to 200 guests, as well as two new hotels and one refurbished.

Further north, in Port Douglas, Wildlife Habitat has a new crocodile arena, ready to seat 300 for a banquet and to cater for 600 at cocktail functions.

It’s all part of a determined bid to position the Tropical North as a major conference and business hub for Australian companies who might no longer be so keen to go overseas.

“It will lead to a lot more visitors, more jobs and it’ll be terrific for investors generally,” says Rosie Douglas, general manager at Tourism Tropical North Queensland.

“Cairns is still very affordable for anyone coming from a capital city to buy here, and prices are booming.

“Pre-COVID, we had three million visitors a year, and we’ll soon have that again with so many amazing tourism experiences.

“At the moment the Cairns Regional Council is also running a campaign to have more people move here, called Choose Cairns, and the city is just so liveable.”

The latest figures certainly support her case. House prices in the Cairns LGA are up 10.3 per cent compared to this time last year at $460,000, on Domain Group figures.

Similarly, in the Douglas Shire to the north, an area that includes Port Douglas, it’s risen 16.5 per cent to $530,000.

With a rental vacancy rate of 0.4 per cent, rents are growing healthily, too.

In Cairns, they rose 9.1 per cent in the year to a median of $400 a week, delivering a handsome yield of 5.7 per cent, and in Douglas, they jumped 11.3 per cent to $445, a yield of 5.5 per cent.

“There’s an exceptionally tight vacancy rate at the moment, which has been driven mainly by the lack of unit development,” says Peter Hanrahan, manager of real estate agents Cairns Property Office.

“Most of our properties are also going to owner-occupiers just now, which makes it even tighter. But it means good returns for investors and, with the new infrastructure that’s been going in and the borders re-opening for tourists, the local economy will rebound too.”

Cairns mortgage broker Nathan Baumgart of Loan Market points to more projects underway, such as the imminent conversion of the former Bunnings into a new $6.8 million Screen Queensland film and TV studio.

With a rental vacancy rate of 0.4 per cent, rents are growing healthily, too. In Cairns, they rose 9.1 per cent in the year to a median of $400 a week, delivering a handsome yield of 5.7 per cent, and in Douglas, they jumped 11.3 per cent.

“Obviously, if there’s so much money being spent in the area, it really encourages good returns for investors,” he says.

“We also have a lot of people from Melbourne and Sydney buying properties here – often sight-unseen.”