Real Estate
25 September, 2025
House price rise
MEDIAN house prices in Cairns have crept over $700,000.
According to a Cairns Chamber of Commerce ‘Cairns Economic Monitor’ for September, houses are now $712,000 while units had jumped to $407,000.
Pete Faulkner of Conus Business Consultancy Services said house prices were up 13% while units had risen by 9%.
“Having apparently struggled to breach what might have been psychological median prices barriers of $700,000 (for houses) and $400,000 (for units) a few months ago, prices have now moved further ahead,” he said.
“Cairns remains as one of the best performing regions for real estate price increases over the past three years (+16.1% pa) and is now also beating the national average for seven years (+9.4% pa versus +8.0% pa).”
Mr Faulkner said there appeared to be a clear shift in lower rental units “and this trend has become even more obvious this month”.
“While rents for houses are still climbing (albeit slowly), average rents for two-bedroom units have very clearly fallen from the highs we saw at the beginning of the year,” he said.
“At least part of the reason for this is that increases in unit rents had been running well ahead of the increase in unit prices.
“In the early part of this year unit rents had increased, since 2016, by 16% more than unit prices.
“This recent pause in unit rents has seen that gap close to just 5%. The discrepancy between the pace of price and rent increases has now been largely closed so we might expect to see the two move ahead more in tandem in coming months.”
“Certainly, the low rental vacancy rate, which is stubbornly below 1%, combined with falling interest rates would point towards further upward pressure on both measures.”
Palm House Property director Troy McGuane said Cairns was holding steady.
He said the Cairns market was resilient, consistent and balanced.
“Land values have increased by 31% since 2022, vacancy rates remain under 1% and buyer activity is still strong.
“Investors are returning, rents are rising and lifestyle-driven relocations are steady.
“But the key difference in Cairns is stability.
“We’re not in a boom-and-bust cycle.
“We’re in a market that rewards well-presented, correctly priced homes with strong results – without volatility.”
