Residential crane numbers paint bleak supply picture for Melbourne apartment supply: RLB Crane Index Melbourne Q1 2024
Cranes working on residential developments in Melbourne grew in the first quarter of 2024.
The latest edition of the Q1 2024 RLB Crane Index® reveals a measured uptick in crane activity across Melbourne, with a 14 per cent rise in residential crane numbers compared to Q3 2023. The total number of residential cranes jumped from 94 to 107.
While heading in the right direction, only two of Melbourne's six main regions recorded gains in crane numbers. Melbourne's north is booming, with 26 cranes added, while there were five added to Melbourne's east.
There's been a jump in large development sites in Melbourne's north which command multiple cranes.
There are now three cranes at HOME in Alphington, two each at Glenvill's YarraBend in Alphington, Ballarat Street in Brunswick, PACE 3058 in Coburg and Hamton's Moonee Valley Park in Moonee Ponds.
The residential sector continues to dominate crane activity in Melbourne, accounting for 55 per cent of all cranes in the city. While an uptick quarter on quarter, the total number of cranes is still five per cent lower than it was this time last year.
Most residential sub-sectors saw lower activity in 2023, with apartments down by 10.8 per cent and new houses down slightly by 0.4 per cent.
A total of 55 cranes were added to residential sites over the past six months, and 42 cranes were removed.
Despite being two of Australia's most populated cities, Sydney has 196 more cranes in the sky than Melbourne, which is contributing to the huge undersupply of new property in the Victorian capital.
Inner Melbourne recorded the same number of cranes as Q3 2023.
A total of 38 new cranes were added and the same number of cranes were removed. The residential, commercial and civil sectors each have more than 10 cranes. The sites with the most cranes in inner Melbourne are Seafarers by Riverlee in Docklands, Melbourne Quarter Tower by Lendlease and Local: Kensington.
