There is no specific date as to when things started to ease but property pundits agree places aren’t selling at the rate they were this time last year.

Even the seemingly resilient North Queensland market has slowed with several properties passing in after being put to auction.

Property valuer Herron Todd White’s (HTW) Month in Review publication for August points to two distinct pictures in the rural property market: One is of a sound rural market in Northern Australia with only “minor” issues that can be addressed with a good wet season, verses that of the remainder of Eastern Australia with major water problems that are deeply rooted and don’t have an ‘easy fix’ solution.

“If that is not enough, throw a Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme into the “pot” and the rural market is in for a very interesting ride ahead,” the report said.

HTW’s wrap on North Queensland focussed on the trend of managed investment schemes (MIS) buying into cane areas, particularly in the Cassowary Coast (Cardwell, Tully, Innisfail).

Despite many cane farming communities voicing their concerns against the buy-up of farming areas for forestry, the HTW data shows that since 2003 the prices being paid for cane land has actually risen overall, largely due to MIS.

“Over the entire period from 1980 to 2008, rural property values in the region have increased on average by approximately 5.3pc pa,” the HTW report said.

The plantation timber industry has impacted on the sugar industry in the FNQ wet tropics, particularly the Tully district, where the area of cane available for milling has reduced from 26,200 hectares in 2000 to 24,400 in 2007 and 22,300 ha this year.

And the 2008 total includes 1100 hectares on farms in the Silkwood area that last year sent cane to South Johnstone Mill.

*Full story in this week’s North Queensland Register, out Thursday.