17/8 Quamby Place, Noosa Heads is a new listing.PROPERTY prices in some of Queensland’s major regional towns are finally starting to fire, as the widespread cooling of the market begins to thaw.Sales levels may still be down in some major regional centres, but the latest CoreLogic quarterly regional market report revealed values were on the way up on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast and the decline had stopped in Cairns.The Gold Coast experienced the biggest increase in house values, up 7.5 per cent, while unit values rose 5.9 per cent in the year to June. The Sunshine Coast also experienced a resurgence of interest, with house values up 6 per cent and unit values up by 4.4 per cent. In Cairns values remained stable for houses and units increasing just slightly by 0.4 per cent.Average time on the market was also on the way down on the Gold Coast, falling two days for houses and four for units.On the Sunshine Coast current sales volumes were 6 per cent higher than the five-year average for the region. Compared with this time last year, both houses and units were selling faster, with a house selling within 79 days, compared with 87 at this time last year.While values have dropped in Townsville, by about $10,000 using the current median house price, transactions sped up – but just a little. Houses sold on average one day faster than at this time last year.In the Wide Bay region values remained steady for houses and unit values dropped by about 1.2 per cent. Sales levels were similar to last year and it took, on average, 108 days to sell a house. While that figure may seem high, it was on its way down and was three days faster than a year ago.Cairns house values remained steady, but homes were taking an extra 11 days to sell compared with last year.Cameron Kusher from CoreLogic said the regions in Queensland had improved.“I think the worst of the GFC is behind them, but really, at the moment, it is all about the southeast corner,’’ he said.Mr Kusher said although Cairns figures were pretty flat it was probably the best-performing region outside the southeast corner. He said on the Gold Coast, a lot of buyers were coming from interstate.More from newsMould, age, not enough to stop 17 bidders fighting for this home1 hour agoBuyers ‘crazy’ not to take govt freebies, says 28-yr-old investor1 hour ago“We are starting to see migration into southeast Queensland pick up; Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Noosa, all of those markets, the migration doesn’t really seem to be moving outside of southeast Queensland yet,” he said.“And I think it is a bit of a combination. Some people leaving Sydney and Melbourne to move to southeast Queensland, but also I think (it’s) some of the people with all of that equity in their properties in Sydney and Melbourne looking to buy coastal properties on the Gold Coast and obviously some of them on the Sunshine Coast as well.’’Ray White Cairns Central principal Angela Capitanio said while there was no substantial price growth, it was a good sign for the market that price declines seemed to have stopped. Cairns was entering into its biggest selling months of the year, and she hoped it would result in a stronger finish to 2017.“I do not see a decline in price, but I do still think the market is very price sensitive and prices have to be competitive,’’ she said.Ms Capitanio said there was also more activity in inner-city units.Tom Offerman from Tom Offerman Real Estate on the Sunshine Coast said with prices so high in Melbourne and Sydney, buyers from those markets with plenty of equity were looking at Noosa. “We have buyers converging on Noosa from all of our traditional markets, New Zealand, New South Wales and Victoria,” Mr Offerman said. “I have never seen as many buyers from Sydney in my 30 years here as I have over the last three or four months. We have got a good number of listings and we are selling as fast as we list them.”Mr Offerman said properties selling at auction were achieving 5 or 10 per cent above reserve, with the odd case selling for 20 or 30 per cent over. “I think we will have a very strong market for the next couple of years,’’ he said. Mr Offerman said the big game changer for the Sunshine Coast market would be the opening of an additional runway at the Sunshine Coast airport in about 2020. read more