REAL estate markets in regional towns are bouncing back, with new CoreLogic RP Data figures showing a year of solid growth.

While mining towns still struggled a little the latest Regional Report revealed many coastal hot spots had started to perform better.

The Richmond-Tweed region had the biggest increase in transaction activity, with dwelling sales up 7.3 per cent over the 12 months to May 2015, while the Illawarra region recorded the largest increase in home values, up 12.2 per cent for houses and 9.8 per cent for units.

Townsville was the only region in Australia where home values fell during the year, they were down 2 per cent for houses and 1.2 per cent for units.

CoreLogic RP Data analyst Cameron Kusher said areas linked to the resources sector weren’t performing as well as those markets linked to the tourism and seachange options.

“We’re seeing good solid growth return to those markets (tourism and seachange) which is not something that’s happened since 2007,’’ he said.

“That’s probably been in the last 18 months or so, it was very weak for coastal regions up until then.

“Now that interest has come back we’re seeing that largely the growth is in houses and not units

“The reason why units are still under performing is because of an oversupply of this property type that dates back to the construction from late 2008.

“We’re also not seeing a huge amount of investor interest, and investors are the ones who tend to buy apartments and units the most.

“There’s definitely a level of optimism but in terms of growth it’s pretty slow compared to what people are used to.

“Looking into the future we should expect that pace to be the new normal, rather than the 25 per cent changes that were more common a decade ago.’’

Mr Kusher said nationally some of the stand outs were in New South Wales where the Illawarra region recorded the largest increase in home values.

He said around Richmond-Tweed region there was quite a healthy increase in transactions, with a 7.3 per cent rise in dwelling sales.

Mr Kusher said coastal regions were starting to move again, particularly in Queensland.

The report found in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie region although sales had fallen this year, transactions were still 5.4 per cent above the five year average.

In the Illawarra region in dollar terms, house values increased by $59,000 while unit values increased by $36,000.

Within the Richmond, Tweed area the median house value was now $446,000 for houses and $338,000 for units. Dwelling sales are the highest they have been since 2008 in the area.

On the Gold Coast home values went up 4.3 per cent for houses and 4 per cent for units while on the Sunshine Coast transaction levels were down, but 23 per cent higher than the five year average.

Queensland’s Wide Bay has had minimal change to home values over the 12 months to June, with median house values increasing by 0.7 per cent, and unit values rising by 0.4 per cent.

In Cairns median values went up 4.7 per cent for houses and 3.8 per cent for units while in Geelong home values increased 3.3 per cent for houses and 0.9 per cent for units.

Within the Latrobe, Gippsland region home values increased by 2.3 per cent for houses and 1.6 per cent for units.

In Western Australia’s Bunbury region house values were up 0.3 per cent while unit values were up 0.7 per cent.