This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
DWELLING approvals have risen in April by 9.1% for the first time this year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
After a negative start to the year, approvals bounced back strongly and is 27.3% higher than the same month a year ago.
BIS Shrapnel’s Dr Kim Hawtrey said it is heartening to see that dwelling approvals bounced back in April, after the disappointing result last month.
“For some time BIS Shrapnel has been singling out New South Wales as the key state to watch, and the results unfolding month by month support this view. New South Wales experienced a strong rise in detached housing permits (+6.6% s.a.), and that is heartening.
“The April rise was strongest in the NSW multi-residential sector, with a phenomenal boost to multi-residential approvals (+57.2% s.a.). High density is playing a prominent role in the dwelling mix in Sydney at this stage of the recovery.
“While the positive April result for dwellings was welcome news, we’re conscious that the high numbers are concentrated in the private other dwellings category which displays a degree of variance from month to month,” he added.
Dwelling approvals decreased in the Australian Capital Territory (-2.2%), Victoria (-1.1%) and South Australia (-0.8%) but increased in Northern Territory (8.7%), Tasmania (2.9%), Western Australia (2.5%), New South Wales (0.7%) and Queensland (0.5%) in trend terms.
Dwelling approval trends have been rising for more than one year in both Western Australia and Queensland (15 months each) while falling for the last nine months in Victoria.
In trend terms, approvals for private sector houses rose 1.0% in April, the fourth consecutive monthly increase. Of the states and territories, Western Australia (1.9%), New South Wales (1.3%) and Victoria (1.1%) experienced the largest rises in private sector house approvals. In New South Wales the trend has been rising since April last year (13 months). Private sector house approvals rose in Queensland (0.2%) for the first time since February 2012.
The trend value of total building approved rose 1.2% in April and has now risen for 15 months. The values of residential building rose 0.1% and non-residential building rose 2.7%.
Property Review
