Coppick Property Advisory

05/09/2026

I spent Saturday morning at seven open homes across Townsville. South Townsville, Bushland Beach, Annandale, Condon and Cranbrook.

Two things came out of it that you won't get from a chart.

The first: most of the agents told me the market has levelled out. Not falling. Levelled. It isn't running the way it has the last few years.

That's worth sitting with, because almost everything written about Townsville at the moment still describes a boom. If you're an interstate investor being sold urgency, it's worth knowing that the people actually running the open homes are saying something quieter.

But levelled is not the same as flat, and it is nothing like bad news.

There are still pockets doing well, and there is one property type in particular that is showing genuinely strong value in Townsville right now — enough that it changed how I'd approach a purchase here.

I'm not going to name it in a post. Not to be mysterious. Because whether it suits you depends on your numbers, your borrowing position and what you actually want the property to do, and naming it here would send people at it who shouldn't go near it. That's the sort of thing I started this business to avoid.

If you want to know what it is and whether it fits your situation, ask me. That conversation costs nothing.

The second thing surprised me more. Several agents mentioned they rarely meet a buyers agent in person. Most deal with them over the phone, from another city.

Let me be honest about what this is. Seven conversations on one morning is not a data set. It isn't a market report and I'm not presenting it as one. It's what the people running the sales are saying while it's happening, which is usually a few months ahead of the figures.

What I'd take from it as a buyer: some pressure has come out of the market, and that gives you time. Time to inspect properly, get building and pest done without panicking, and negotiate instead of compete.

The buyers who do badly in a levelling market are the ones still behaving as though it's booming.

I'll be out again next Saturday.

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Buyer's side only. I take no money from sellers.
QLD Real Estate Licence 4961592
General information only, not personal advice.

04/09/2026

The place people are leaving is no longer the one growing fastest.

Toowoomba houses rose 18.93% over the year. Greater Brisbane rose 15.5%.

The regional market outgrew the capital.

And Toowoomba is selling in 14 days. The Queensland average is 21.

Here is what that actually means if you are planning a move inland.

It gets called a tree change. It usually isn't. It's an equity decision — you sell on the coast, buy outright inland, and keep the difference. No mortgage.

That is a rational trade and I understand exactly why people make it.

But the arithmetic is shifting underneath it. The regional centres people are moving to are now growing faster than the markets they are leaving. The affordability gap is closing while people chase it.

If that is your 2027 plan, the gap you are budgeting on is not the gap you will get.

That is not a reason to rush. It is a reason to do the numbers before you sell.

If you have already made that move — coast to inland — I would genuinely like to hear how the numbers landed against what you expected. Comment or send me a message.

Source: REIQ Queensland Market Monitor, March 2026 quarter.

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Buyer's side only. I take no money from sellers.
QLD Real Estate Licence 4961592
General information only, not personal advice.

03/09/2026

Off-market does not mean cheap.

It gets sold as though it does. Nobody else has seen it, no competition, so surely a bargain.

Sometimes. Not always.

No competition also means no price discovery. On the open market, twenty buyers tell you what a property is worth. Off-market, one person does — and he is the one selling it.

Some stock is quiet for a good reason. The owner has tenants they don’t want unsettled, or a private situation, or simply no appetite for a sign out the front. Some stock is quiet because it would not survive four weeks of open homes and public questions.

Before I take an off-market property to a client, three things have to hold:

— The seller has a real reason to move quietly.

— The price stands up against recent comparable sales.

— The answer to “why isn’t this advertised” is specific.

If that last one is vague, that is the answer.

I take no money from sellers. My only client is the buyer — which is why I will talk you out of an off-market deal as fast as I will find you one.

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
QLD Real Estate Licence 4961592

30/08/2026

30/08/2026

I read the ABS Census for 23 Queensland regions and wrote up what I found.

Four things surprised me.

1. The beach town is the coal town.

Coal mining employs 8.1% of workers around Yeppoon and the Capricorn Coast, against 3.8% in Rockhampton. More than double. Mine and fly-in workers live on the coast and travel to the Bowen Basin. Rockhampton's biggest employer is actually hospitals.

So if you assumed Rockhampton was the mining risk and Yeppoon was the safe coastal play, it's close to the opposite.

2. Gas country isn't gas country any more.

Around Roma and out through the Western Downs, gas extraction doesn't appear in the top five employers at all. Beef cattle farming does — 12.8% of workers around Roma, 7.2% across the Western Downs. The construction boom left, and what's underneath it is cattle and grain.

3. A quarter of Cardwell's houses were empty on Census night.

25.4% unoccupied. Population 1,320, median age 60. That's a retirement and holiday village, not a market with depth — which matters enormously if you ever need to sell.

4. Around Ingham, one worker in five is in sugar.

10.6% growing cane and 9.0% milling it. 19.6% of the entire workforce in one crop. That's a level of concentration you won't find on the coast south of it.

None of this is in a listing. None of it moves a median. All of it changes whether a property is a good idea for you specifically.

I've written up all 23 regions the same way — who actually employs people there, and what would hurt you as a buyer. No medians, no vacancy rates, because those figures move and the sources disagree. Just the structural stuff, with the ABS data behind it.

Free to read, no signup, nothing to fill in.

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Buyer-side only, flat fee, no commissions.

29/08/2026

I've got three five-star reviews.

I haven't sold a house to any of them.

Two of those people came to me wanting to buy. I told them to go and talk to a
mortgage broker first, because they weren't ready yet. They wrote me a review
anyway. The third is an investor I helped work out where to buy next.

The last voice in here isn't a client at all. It's the solicitor who went
through my engagement letter, my client documents and my compliance before I
had taken anyone on.

Here's the part most people never think about.

A selling agent is paid by the seller, when the property sells. So "now's a
great time to buy" is the only sentence that pays them.

I charge a flat fee, paid by the buyer. No commissions. No kickbacks. No
referral money from brokers, builders or developers — not a cent. Which means
"you're not ready yet, go and sort your borrowing capacity first" costs me
nothing to say.

That's not me being noble. That's just what happens when you take the
incentive to push out of the room.

If you're somewhere between "thinking about it" and "ready", the first
conversation is free and I'll tell you which one you are.

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Townsville · Charters Towers · North Queensland
coppickpropertyadvisory.com

27/08/2026

The best property in North Queensland never hits the internet. 👇

No listing. No sign out the front. No open home. Just an owner who'd sell for the right number.

I live up here. I walk these streets, I talk to the property managers and the owners every single week — and I keep a register of the homes that will never be advertised. A grand old Queenslander with a pool. An investment property in a growth suburb. More every week.

If you're buying in the north from somewhere else, you can't see any of this from a portal. But I can see it from my front door.

For context: the average Australian buyer now takes 44 weeks to purchase a property. My clients skip that queue — because I'm already in the market they're trying to enter.

Buyer's side only. Flat fee. No commissions from anyone, ever.

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Licensed Real Estate Agent (QLD) 4961592
coppickpropertyadvisory.com
General information, not personal advice.

24/08/2026

The average Australian buyer now takes 44 WEEKS to purchase a property. 👇

Ten months. That's not me being dramatic — that's the latest industry research, and it's nearly double the 23 weeks it took in 2022. Around 13 of those weeks are spent just watching the market, trying to work out what anything is actually worth.

Here's why it takes that long — and why it's not your fault:

🔹 You're doing it part-time. After work, between kids' sport, on your phone at 10pm. The people on the other side of the deal do it all day, every day.

🔹 You're seeing properties LAST. By the time a listing hits the portals, local agents have already shown it to their buyer lists. Some never get advertised at all — they sell before the photographer shows up.

🔹 You're pricing off asking prices — which are marketing, not value. The sold data that tells the truth takes digging most buyers never do.

🔹 Every "quick question" costs you a week. Which broker? What's this suburb really like? Is this building report a dealbreaker? Each one is a night of Googling and three conflicting opinions.

This is the actual job of a buyers agent — and it's why I built mine the way I did. My week is spent inside the machine you only visit: talking to selling agents about what's coming BEFORE it lists, to property managers about what streets actually rent, to brokers about what lending is really doing, to inspectors and conveyancers about the traps they saw this month. You buy once every seven years. I'm in it every single day.

That's the maths of it: you're not paying a buyers agent to do something you can't do. You're paying to compress ten stressful months into a process run by someone who never left the market.

Buyer's side only. Flat fee. No commissions from anyone.

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Licensed Real Estate Agent (QLD) 4961592

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Licensed Real Estate Agent (QLD) 4961592
coppickpropertyadvisory.com
General information, not personal advice.

22/08/2026

The most expensive mistake property buyers make 👇

They see $750,000 on a listing and think the property is worth $750,000. It isn't. That number is marketing — chosen to attract you. Sometimes it's set low to start a bidding war. Sometimes it's set high so a discount feels like a win.

The only number that tells the truth is what properties actually SOLD for.

And the trap almost everyone falls into: pricing a home off the other listings around it. That's checking one asking price against four more asking prices.

Asking prices tell you what sellers want. Sold prices tell you what buyers paid. Never confuse the two.

Full guide on how to find and use sold prices → coppickpropertyadvisory.com/blog/posts/list-price-isnt-sale-price

Ryan Coppick — Coppick Property Advisory
Licensed Real Estate Agent (QLD) 4961592
Buyer's side only. No commissions from anyone.
General information, not personal advice.