I broke every bone in my body last year so have had plenty of time to do my research. I have not heard that townsville will be booming yet. But u never hear about it until its too late. Both townsville and cairns have slowly been picking up in the housing market not so much units. Between the two cities, cairns will boom first with the amount of million and billion dollar projects approved including the AQUIS resort and casino. Townsville is not too far away considering they have a large amount of inferstructure also approved. However, finding a positive cash flow property in the right areas of the cities should not be too hard. Keep in mind the majority of inferstructure in townsville will be an extrinsic factor (workers from outside townsville due to the nature of the developments) whilst cairns developments will have both intrinsic and extrinsic factors in all their developments. Further, the Aquis resort and casino will require aprox 11000 staff to run it. These staffing needs will need to be met by locals or ppl the move to the area perminantly. As a personal preferance, i would buy in townsville to live there because i am so far over my hometown of cairns. As an investment, with thinking cap and no emotion… cairns northern beaches.