August building approvals miss big

The ABS has released its August Building Approvals series and it’s another miss for the rebalancing project. Consensus for month on month was a decrease of 0.5% and increase of 12.8% year on year. Instead we got minus 4.7% and 7.7%. At least we’ve got more expensive houses!

AUGUST KEY FIGURES

		Aug 13	Jul 13 to Aug 13	Aug 12 to Aug 13
		no.	% change	% change

TREND
	Total dwelling units approved	13 896	0.1	5.8
	Private sector houses	8 201	0.6	10.2
	Private sector dwellings excluding houses	5 374	-0.1	-1.8
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED
	Total dwelling units approved	13 687	-4.7	7.7
	Private sector houses	8 115	-1.6	10.3
	Private sector dwellings excluding houses	5 371	-6.5	3.2

Worryingly, as in the case of new home sales, total approvals appear to be plateauing:

Though houses look more hopeful:

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.