Last week’s building approvals data for Feb saw a big correction from the stellar Jan figures (see here) so we might have expected things to have eased slightly in the Far North too; in fact that has not been the case.
The raw, unadjusted ABS data shows Cairns (incl Douglas) had 71 approvals, the Cassowary Coast 10 and Townsville 108. When we look at the impact on the Conus Trend series we see very solid improvements in the Far North. Cairns (incl Douglas) sees Trend approvals increase to 64 from 63 (although Jan was also revised up from 56); CCRC sees the Trend stable at 10 (when rounded) although Jan was revised up from 8. The exception is in Townsville where the Conus Trend was stable at 131 after Jan was revised sharply lower from 141.
In terms of annual changes of the Trend, Cairns now sits at +28.6%, CCRC at +51.5% and Townsville at +9.9%.
Within the CCRC region it was, once again, the Tully SA2 area which led approvals with 6 of the 10 coming from this area. I will leave it to others (we’re looking at you Loose Change!) to analyse the SA2 data for Cairns in more detail.
UPDATE: Loose Change has indeed posted with details of the breakdown within the Cairns region. Northside Story continues to play.