THE owners of the first international hotel in Cairns have shaken off the tourism blues and will today reveal a $10 million upgrade to its conference centre.

Seven hundred people are attending the awards at the Cairns Convention Centre, with three Far Northern builders in the finals.

Prepare to taste, watch, dance and play in the tropical seaside village of Port Douglas.

SUNCORP has reassured its Far Northern customers their insurance policies are safe, despite a decision to cap coverage in two other highrisk Queensland centres.

WHEN Bob Manning officially takes the mayoral reins, he will have more than rates, roads and rubbish on his mind.

Following on from May 1 RBA decision to cut the cash rate by 0.5 percentage points, Westpac has cut its headline three year-fixed mortgage by 20 basis points to 6.19%.

Delightful Cotchford Farm enjoys a fascinating provenance with both literary and musical connections.

Well, it has been a while since my last “Watchin Cairns” has gone out, I have been extremely busy and have had two of my better months in a while, already 5 properties under contract this month.

Whilst the Cairns property market remains soft, the median house price has now stabilised.

Vendors no longer have to offer as deep discounts as last year to secure sales of their properties, new data released by Australian Property Monitors reveals.

THE number of scheduled domestic flights and seat capacity to and from Cairns airport are at record highs. Are you jetting off anywhere this weekend?

Demand for rental properties has risen in Cairns with reduced vacancy rates across the region and Queensland and median house sale prices have fallen in the same period, according to two separate reports.

Following a raft of economic data that has come out recently I felt it was important to reflect on this data. It is obvious that the Reserve Bank is currently in a very tough predicament.

PAPUA New Guinea residents are the largest foreign investors in the Far North, according to the latest figures from the Registrar of Titles.

CONFIDENCE in the future of Cairns has led to Hoppen's Carpets building new $1.5 million premises at Manunda.

NEW housing approvals have nearly doubled in the Far North, surprising industry leaders. Has the tide finally turned? Is this the year Far North Queensland's economy finally gets back on track?

ONE of the city's landmark pubs has been placed in receivership but will continue trading in a bid for survival.

THE region's biggest sporting club is defying a bleak economy to launch a $6.5 million expansion that will generate up to 80 local jobs. After being named Queensland’s Best Club 2012 last week, Cazalys has announced it will extend its premises by more than 1800sq m.

Will The RBA give us a rate cut….??? The expectations are that next week the Reserve Bank could award us with an ¼% interest rate cut. We all know that we need this to help the market to pick up..

MUD mania took hold of hundreds of Redlynch State College students yesterday in one of their largest fundraiser events of the year. A change of clothes was a must for about 870 students, from prep to Grade 6, who joined the annual obstathon yesterday. The children climbed, dodged and slid across a number of challenges, with every lap helping to raise money for the school.

GAVIN King, David Kempton and Michael Trout will unite as a force for the Far North when they take their seats in State Parliament, insisting the region's voice will not be drowned out in the huge Campbell Newman-led LNP government.

Property managers should start charging clients more, a leading property manager has said.

The Housing Industry Association (HIA) is calling on the Reserve Bank to cut the official cash rate yet again in a bid to curb the decline in residential construction activity.

THERE was a gaggle of geese living in an apartment. A vindictive owner who regularly ran all the taps in his unit to deliberately push up the water bill for the rest of the block. And a horse that was kept in a Glebe townhouse.

SCA has taken the lead in finding a solution to the crisis in strata insurance in cyclone-prone areas of northern Queensland and Western Australia. There has been a Federal Government review and parliamentary inquiry. Natural Disaster Insurance Review In November 2011 the Federal Government released the report of the Natural Disaster Insurance Review. The Review, originally set up after the Brisbane floods to look at the lack of flood coverage, endorsed SCA's position that assistance to households in high risk areas should also be available to body corporates.

We know it's happening in Cairns and the figures in the capital cities are doing it too, this means the prices will start to slowly get better.

The share of homes with mortgages worth more than the property's value increased at the end of last year as the housing market stalled and prices turned lower. New home buyers saw the biggest jump in so-called negative equity.

On the back of yesterday’s news that consumer confidence has fallen to levels last seen before the November and December rate cuts CommSec chief economist Craig James says Australians “risk talking ourselves into a growth recession”.

An alleged 'death-knock' type incident in Queensland, where an agent was caught taking photos of a lady's house the day after the death of her husband, has drawn a strong rebuke from the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ).

Up until the 10th of this month, our office had put under contract 16 properties, there is a buzz in the air that the property market is looking a little more positive in Cairns.

THE Far North's peak economic body is making it clear to state election candidates what needs to be done to help bring resilience to the region's troubled economy. Advance Cairns has handed over a five-point wish list to local candidates, identifying increased air services, trade with Papua New Guinea, public sector jobs, the defence force and the marine industry as top economic priorities

Often you hear about real estate agents that don’t return phone calls. This is not directed at anyone in particular, but more often than not buyers are the ones that don’t return phone calls.

The RBA has starkly highlighted a dramatic drop in property sales turnover as a key occurrence when it comes to recent economic structural change.

MORE than 12,000 delegates attending 22 conferences at the Cairns Convention Centre will inject $65 million into the region's economy this year.

A NEW $85 million shopping centre, including a full size Woolworths supermarket, is to be built in the heart of Cairns. The 17,000 sq m Central Park Market will be built in Spence St, opposite Cairns Central shopping centre, on vacant land behind the city’s police station and courthouse.

We’re in a state of flux with ongoing uncertainty over the European debt crisis, job losses here at home and the banks signalling that the days of routinely following the Reserve Bank’s moves on interest rates may be over.

FROM Shane's Watchin' Cairns Enewsletter. Fill the form out to subscribe to Watchin' Cairns. I have noticed over the years that the lead up to an election some how puts a majority of the buyers off. For what reason I am not sure,

As the housing market has transitioned out of a growth cycle and hit rock bottom in many regions, vendors have found it increasingly difficult to sell their properties. Subsequently, the average time on the market has risen in many areas, the RP Data report stated.

The RBA has revealed that stabilising house prices were a factor in its surprise decision to keep the official cash interest rate on hold this month.

CAIRNS is being showcased as a one-stop shop for the multi-billion dollar fly-in/fly-out mining workforce sector. Central to this is Cairns becoming the home of a federally-funded FIFO centre of excellence. The proposal was outlined by Advance Cairns in a submission to yesterday’s hearing of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia into the use of FIFO and drive-in/drive-out workforce practices.

The infamous Snowtown bank has been listed for sale. Convicted murderers John Justin Bunting and Robert Joe Wagner used the former bank's vault to store their victims’ bodies in barrels in 1999. The bank has more recently been used to shoot scenes for the film Snowtown.

One of my opens I got over 49 groups through it. The strange thing is not one offer, although a couple of people are thinking about putting an offer in, they haven’t move forward yet.

FAR Northern building approvals continue to rise but industry leaders say there is still a long road to recovery. Residential approvals rose 45 per cent to 77 in December 2011, up from 54 for the same period in 2010, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Shane was awarded the "Top Lister" award at a recent Cairns Property Office function.

PLANS to fix the "dog's breakfast" of residential real estate contracts could mean more information for buyers. The State Government has announced plans to simplify the selling and buying process by reducing the number of forms homeowners need, from as many as six, to one contract.

Queensland and Western Australian estate agent numbers have slumped as a consequence of a nationwide drop in transaction volumes and property prices.

APPEALS against the $15 million expansion of the Redlynch Central shopping centre will delay its construction by up to two years and put 350 jobs on hold.

Remember before the great GFC, we have a lot of little “banks” willing to fight for your business, they have since closed or have been purchased by one of the big four banks, did the ACCC look the other way?

THE Carlyle Group is getting a foot on the Aussie property ladder.

Before the global financial crisis, Australia had a diverse and highly competitive financial system. The four major banks went head-to-head with the likes of St George, Bankwest, Bendigo Bank, Aussie, Adelaide Bank, RAMS, Wizard and Challenger.

Experts are hopeful that interest cuts will restore faith to a cautious market in 2012.

Apartments and multi-storey homes are about to get a little safer for children thanks to a rule change around windows in new buildings.

Well, glad to say that the numbers are up, I have been talking to a couple of agents in our office and not in our office as well and they are saying the same thing…….. the volume has increased.

Australia's house prices fell in every quarter last year but they may have hit bottom, new figures show.

Insurers have defended price rises for residential strata title insurance in north Queensland at a federal parliamentary inquiry.

THE housing industry continues to gain confidence with a spike in building approvals as the Far North recorded the second highest approval increase in the state.

Australian property commentators have lined up to slam predictions made by a US real estate analyst that property prices here are set to dive by as much as 60%.

The Reserve Bank is likely to cut interest rates a further three times this year, Yellow Brick Road executive chairman Mark Bouris has forecast.

Although This story cover Sydney we are seeing the same in Cairns I have written three contracts so far this month, there are buyers around, I have spoken to other agents in Cairns and we feel that there is good volumes but the prices are not going up. It is better than this time last year that's for sure. HOME buyers in Sydney's east and inner west are out in force, with agents reporting a surprising number of early sales. Traditionally January is a quiet month for sales, but some believe the two interest rate cuts in November and December could be encouraging buyers.

The volume of housing finance commitments to owner occupiers increased for the eighth consecutive month in November, up 1.4% over the month and 4.6% over the year.

There is little chance of a housing market crash this year, says HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham as part of his macro-economic outlook for 2012.

A BOUTIQUE accommodation house at North Cairns is undergoing a $3 million expansion and refurbishment. The new-look Cairns Queenslander Apartments and Restaurant in Digger St are due to open in mid May.

TENANTS should be allowed to attend owners' corporation meetings to give renters a much greater say in how their strata buildings are managed and maintained, tenants' groups and strata experts have said.

Brisbane vet Michael O'Donoghue has seen too many people have to give up, or put down, their pets because they could not find a rental property that welcomed animals.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs.

The problem comes about when Local Governments in particular lose control of their costs. It plays out in three steps

THE International Monetary Fund has slashed its economic forecasts for Australia, warning of a new global recession that would hit commodity prices and drive millions worldwide into unemployment.

While Europe and Washington fiddle around fires of varying intensity, foreign central banks buying increasing amounts of commonwealth government bonds are sending a message: Australia is a safe haven.