It’s all negative for Building Approvals in the North

Posted on August 9, 2016 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, Cairns, CCRC, QLD, Townsville, Uncategorized

Yesterday saw the release of the regional ABS Regional Building Approvals data for June. Having completed the Conus Trend analysis we can see that there is very little joy for the North in the numbers (not much of a surprise given the weakness in the State data…see commentary from last week).

Considering the data at the Local Government Area level first we see annual declines in all regions, with all seeing Trend declines from the previous month apart from Cassowary Coast.

Cairns Regional Council (incl Douglas Shire) sees Trend residential approvals fall to 60 (after May was revised down to 64). This represents a 3.0% decline from a year ago.
The Cassowary Coast Regional Council now sits at 8 Trend approvals (unchanged from May which was revised up from 7) and is down 10.2% from a year ago.
Tablelands Regional Council (incl Mareeba Shire) also fell, to 21 (after May was revised up to 23) for a marginal 0.4% decline from June 2015.
Townsville City Council, where the decline in approvals has been ongoing for some time, saw a further decline to 67 (although May was revised up to 69). This represents a 31.2% decline on the level at this time last year.

Taken over the course of the 2015-16 Financial Year Trend Approvals in Townsville fell 40.6% to 912, Cairns (incl Douglas) were up 8.5% to 847, Tablelands (incl Mareeba) were up 14.4% to 273 while the Cassowary Coast fell 10.2% to 91.

At the SA4 level the story is similar. Cairns SA4 saw Trend approvals fall to 93 after May was revised down to 100. This represents a 2.1% decline over the year and is the first yr/yr fall since Sept 2015.

In Townsville SA4 Trend approvals fell to 71 (May unrevised at 74) for a decline of 39.6% for the year; this is the 18th consecutive month of yr/yr declines in Townsville.

The complete set of Conus Trend QLD Regional Building Approvals are available for download below. Please feel free to use this data but we would appreciate you acknowledging Conus when you do so.

Conus Trend QLD Regional Building Apps June 2016