Find below details of the ANZ’s December quarter property industry survey.
The latest Property Council of Australia-ANZ Property Industry Confidence Survey revealed a weaker property industry outlook in the December quarter. Asofter global economy, weaker hard commodity prices and a high Australian dollar are producing challenging domestic economic conditions, particularly for the mining sector. Today’s data confirms this is also having a negative impact on the property sector, as the PCA-ANZ property industry confidence index decreased by 4pts in the December quarter (102 compared to 106 in the September quarter).
The December quarter survey polled more than 3,500 property industry professionals – the most comprehensive survey of Australian property industry views – and revealed weaker property industry confidence for the third consecutive quarter. While the survey revealed weaker property industry sentiment and economic expectations, the outlook for property construction andprice growth remained broadly positive. This result reflects recent weak construction activity and tight market demand/supply fundamentals across most property classes (in both commercial and residential property).
Across states and territories, property industry confidence weakened in the mining states and improved in the non-mining states in the December quarter.Nonetheless, the states with the greatest exposure to the mining industry (WA and the NT) continued to report the highest confidence in level terms, followed by NSW. All other states and territories reported ‘negative’ confidence.
Despite 150bps of cuts to the RBA target cash rate since October 2011, property construction activity and property industry confidence continues to be weighed down by economic uncertainty, planning constraints and tight credit conditions.Nonetheless, the survey revealed a moderately positive outlook for property construction in the coming year, with property industry forward work schedules and expectations for construction activity positive on balance at the national level.
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.
