New apartment approvals see September surge

Building approvals for new apartments and units leapt by 16.1% during the month of September according to new figures out this morning.

“Momentum in Australia’s housing market appears to be growing with the volume of new home building approvals expanding by some 7.6% during September,” Shane Garrett, Chief Economist of Master Builders Australia said.

“Encouragingly, last month’s gain was led by apartments and units. This part of the market had experienced difficulties earlier in the year but the volume of new approvals for high density housing has now notched up two consecutive months of growth,” he said.

“Detached house approvals also rose during September albeit at a more modest rate of 2.7%. This side of the market does tend to move more smoothly from month to month,” Shane Garrett said.

“A range of indicators – house prices, lending and now building approvals – all indicate that Australia’s housing market recovery is gaining traction. Housing market conditions have a huge impact on confidence across our economy and today’s figures must be seen as very good news on that front,” he said.

“Commercial building approvals recorded their strongest ever result during August. Not surprisingly, they reverted to more normal levels during September,” Shane Garrett said.

During September, Queensland led the gain in new home building approvals (+19.6%) followed by South Australia (+16.0%). There were more modest increases in Tasmania (+3.4%) and Victoria (+3.3%) during the month.

Despite the favourable national result, several markets saw new dwelling approvals drop during September including Western Australia (-24.5%), the Northern Territory (-9.3%) and New South Wales (-2.5%).