Apartments drive dwelling approval decline back to 2013 levels

Apartments drive dwelling approval decline back to 2013 levels
Joel RobinsonFebruary 3, 2019

Dwelling approvals continued to fall nationwide in December, according to figures released by the ABS.

Approvals declined over 8.4 percent in December, bringing the seasonally adjusted annual decline to 22 percent.

The annual decline has been driven by apartment approvals, which have now gone back 38 percent over the 12 months to December 2018.

House approvals have declined 11 percent in that time period.

In trends terms, dwelling approvals have now fallen for 14 straight months, down 39 percent from the November 2017 peak.

It's the fourth consecutive quarterly decline, according to economist James Foster.

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Daniel Rossi, director of construction at the ABS, said the series is now at its lowest level since June 2013.

"The trend for the total dwelling approvals series has continued to decline over the past year," Ross said.

Economist Lindsay David said building approvals for both Sydney and Melbourne are moving in line with his anticipated 97% fall from the peak.

David said the figures were "recessionary".

Building approvals is always a volatile data set, but the trend is lower and has been for some time.

 

Far and away the state with the biggest dwelling approval decline was the Australian Capital Territory where approvals declined over 21 percent.

The ACT was followed by Queensland (6.5 percent), New South Wales (5 percent) and Western Australia (3.8 percent).

South Australia and Victoria registered small declines, while the Northern Territory and Tasmania saw small increases in their dwelling approvals.

"Absolutely horrible building data approvals", economist Stephen Koukoulas tweeted.

Economic data feed AlertFX.com had predicted a 2.1 percent increase in dwelling approvals.

The AUD has reacted negatively to the approvals news, pulling back 20 points in the market.

 

 

 

 

 

Joel Robinson

Joel Robinson is a property journalist based in Sydney. Joel has been writing about the residential real estate market for the last five years, specializing in market trends and the economics and finance behind buying and selling real estate.

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