The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released dwelling approvals data for the month of August. At the national level, the number of dwelling approvals fell by a seasonally adjusted 1.8% to 20,788. The overall fall was broad-based with the volatile unit and apartment segment falling by 3.6% and the more stable house approvals segment falling by 1.3%.
However, in the year to August 2016, dwelling approvals rose by a seasonally-adjusted 10.1%, with unit approvals surging by 26.3%, more than offsetting a 6.5% decline in detached house approvals:
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 shown above, dwelling approvals have rebounded recently on the back of units & apartments, thus forming a double-top (second peak) in trend terms (see next chart).
Approvals are also levitating at a near record high level in annual terms:
There were 238,205 approvals in the year to August 2016 – only slightly below the peak of 240,991 approvals in the year to October 2015, with most of this growth in approvals coming from units and apartments, which are running at more than twice the 30-year average.
The below chart shows the time-series of approvals at the state level on a trend basis:
As you can see, NSW and VIC have led the resurgence in approvals nationally, whereas QLD’s and SA’s approvals have turned down and WA’s are crashing.
Nevertheless, there is still lots of life in the dwelling construction boom, which could now run into 2018 based on these figures.
