WATCH: 30 June, 2022 Whitsunday Weekly E-News

Hi, Annette Neil from PRD Whitsunday.

This week was a very exciting week if you are into your stats. Stats may sound boring, however with that comes of a lot of data that can tell us many things and of course from data comes research. What does the R in PRD stand for? Research of course!

This week the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest data, the data census captures a snapshot of Australia as at August 2021, a little different from the census 5 years prior to that, when we didn't have covid or lockdowns. A couple of findings from the census data, we found that the amount of people living in apartments or in much high density housing has risen to be 10.3%, a very high raising number. There moving away from the traditional quarter acre Australian dream of owning your own home. Other interesting stats was the outright homeownership has dropped from 40% down to 30%, so of course you may have heard through the media the talk on increasing amount of debt across Australia, so this obviously backs these figures, with a lot less people owning their own home outright.

Other news this week, here in the Whitsunday's, we welcomed back Cruise Ships, which is massive on a tourism point of view. As we use to welcome cruise ships quite regularly, its been great to see them back over the hill coming into Airlie and seeing the ships out the front in the Coral Sea. Visitors in town are enjoying what we have to offer! This has not been the case over the last two years but finally we are back welcoming the cruise ships and what a welcomed sight it is. We do expect to see 80 plus ships coming through here in the next 12months, so great news for our Tourism based town.

Also this week PRD Research has put out our latest 1st Home Owner Buyers Guide - Click on the link below to find out more: 1st Home Buyer Guide- Click here