The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released the Building Approvals data for the month of December. At the national level, the number of dwelling approvals fell by a seasonally adjusted -4.4% to 12,767, with falls recorded in both the detached house (-3.3%) and apartment (-5.4%) segments. Consensus was for a total rise of 1.0%.
In the year to December 2012, dwelling approvals rose by a seasonally-adjusted 9.3%, with the -3.8% fall in house approvals more than offset by a 31.7% rise in apartment approvals (see next table).
A chart showing the time series of seasonally-adjusted dwelling approvals at the national level is provided below, split-out by detached houses and units & apartments:
As you can see, dwelling approvals nationally were trending down since early 2010, but received a large boost in May and June 2012 when the number of unit & apartment approvals bounced. This unit and apartments boom has been volatile ever since, retracing and then recovering, before retracing again.
Monthly dwelling approvals are now running just below long-term average levels, as shown by the below chart. However, they remain fairly depressed in population-adjusted terms, given that Australia’s population has grown by more than 40% over the past 30-years.
The below chart shows the time-series of approvals at the state level:
This month’s falls were driven by Victoria, where approvals fell by -550 units (-12%). New South Wales also recorded a -1% fall in approvals, which is concerning given the October introduction of generous first home buyer incentives aimed at new housing. On the other hand, approvals rose in Queensland by +8%, suggesting that similar first home buyer concessions might be starting to bite. Elsewhere, increases were recorded in Western Australia (+1%) and South Australia (+2%), whereas sharp falls were recorded in Tasmania (-22%), the ACT (-39%) and the Northern Territory (-33%).
unconventionaleconomist@hotmail.com
No worries, the shrinking number of sales are resulting in higher house prices so all is good then ay! Less and less being sold for more and more. Supply and demand clearly working well. Hmmmm…
Take note Ted and the HIA.
Vic leading the falls. Axe the FHB grant for pre-existing dwellings, now.
That NT number represents a complete failure in NT Govt housing policy. (I feel your pain, Bubbley.)
That would make sense if the FHBA was designed for anything but inflating the housing bubble.
Isn’t this just noise? The figures bounce up and down sharply from one month to the next, but the current trend is clearly up.
I’ve noticed lots of meaningless noise this morning.
What’s new?
you
+1
Supertramp – “Goodbye Stranger”
Goodbye stranger it’s been nice
Hope you find your paradise
Tried to see your point of view
Hope your dreams will all come true
Goodbye Mary, Goodbye Jane
Will we ever meet again
Feel no sorrow, feel no shame
Come tomorrow, feel no pain
Oh God he’s on this article too.
If you wanted to give the impression of a genuine debate, as opposed to just a hell of a lot of people disagreeing with you, maybe you should try creating different user accounts?
Speaking of which, whatever happened to our esteemed colleagues ‘ilow’, ‘aplund’, ‘madafo’, ‘dam’ and ‘Martin Place’? I suspect the controlling hand might be busy up the backside of another sock puppet.
He shoots he scores!
[...] national data aren’t encouraging. See, for example, coverage at MacroBusiness (Building approvals fall sharply in December) and the Conus economics blog (Building Approvals decline; but the trend data is up…just). [...]
I think we maybe missing a bigger issue here. Quibbling over one or two percent of nothing mich really.
The currency wars along with the US and Euro zone issues will dwarf these effects on our future markets.
How does the floods affect the figures for QLD, is it possible approvals are up because a number of homes have been lost up there from the last floods plus these new floods ?
2011 floods too long ago
2013 floods postdate this Dec 2012 data
Qld approvals up due to axing of the FHB grant for pre-existing dwellings in Oct 2012
picking up on the currency wars, i have been waiting for an opportunity to air my thoughts on this subject.
there are not two major economies actively involved but four – japan and china. china by pegging its currecy to the us dollar.
today the $A can buy two japanese cars compared with what it would buy ten years ago. the chinese yuan has also depreciated the same ammount over the same ten year peiod. what chance does any austtralian industry have of surviving against this sort of unfair curreny competition.
and what does the australian government intend to do about it – sfa. refer to our minister for industry,s recent comments “australian businesses will just have to learn to live with a high australian dollar it is not going to go away” or words to that effect.
i hope that the rba can stir the govt. up in this regard or at any rate make another couple of int rate cuts which may at least put some pressure on the government to steer the extra money generated to some economically usful purpose.
gk
should read
“today the $A can buy two japanese cars, when ten years ago the same ammount would buy just one japanese car.”
gk
gk
In 2005 $AU-GBP was about 2.49 now it hovers around 1.5
Tourism, investment competitiveness.
I’m holding off liquidating any assets and bringing the coin home. I’d wager I’m not alone.
When you say that we should consider population adjusted figures, I assume you mean for the any increases in the growth in the number of families/housholds being formed.
It may be that the additional households formed as a result of increases in the divorce rate since the introduction of the Family Law Act and brekdown of de facto relationships has plateaued somewhat after contributing to the desire/need for additional dwellings.
The additional houses needed in the 80′s and 90′s might have been contributed to by the growing number of single parent families/single parents living alone, but that driver of housing demand may now be plateaued rather than growing.
I don’t know if that could be the case, just suggesting that there may be other factors besides outright population numbers.