New house sales fall again, units boom

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From the HIA:

New home sales climbed off the mat in October following a very weak period in mid-2012, said the Housing Industry Association, the voice of Australia’s residential building industry.

“A 3.4 per cent increase in new home sales in October is a modest result, but at least it is a move in the right direction,” said HIA Chief Economist, Harley Dale.

The HIA New Home Sales report, a survey of Australia’s largest volume builders, showed a substantial 31.4 per cent increase in the sale of multi-units in October and this delivered the headline rise for the month. Detached house sales fell by 2.0 per cent in October, a disappointing result which marked the fifth decline in six months.

“Scratching below the surface, new home sales in October were a mixed bag. Within the weak headline result for detached houses there were modest increases for New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia, albeit from very low bases,” Harley Dale said. “Detached house sales in Victoria were a big drag on the aggregate result in October, slumping by 12.1 per cent. If you take that result out of the mix then detached house sales actually posted a rise of 2.4 per cent.”

“We need to see evidence emerge in coming months of a stronger, broader based recovery for new home building,” Harley Dale said. “The fact we don’t have that evidence now is precisely why the Reserve Bank of Australia should cut interest rates next Tuesday.”

“Further action on rates next week would bolster the chances that we see a sustained recovery in new home building in 2013. Right now the jury is still out on that,” added Harley Dale.

In October 2012 the number of seasonally adjusted new detached house sales increased by 4.7 per cent in New South Wales, 3.2 per cent in South Australia, and 3.7 per cent in Western Australia.

Detached house sales fell by 12.1 per cent in Victoria and were down by 4.3 per cent in Queensland.

Aside from the Victorian result described earlier by UE, not bad but a glance at the chart shows we are still well short of a trend break. and the labour-intensive detached housing sector is still struggling ? Here is the how much:

And how big was the units spike? This big:

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2012-10 NHSS National Media Release (1).pdf

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.