Regional Building Approvals shows improvement in Cairns

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, Cairns, QLD, Townsville, Uncategorized

The ABS have released their original Building Approvals data for July for the regions. The data is provided at both an SA4 (as well as SA3 and SA2) level and Local Government Area. We create the Conus Trend series for all the SA4 regions in Queensland and also for our local government areas of Townsville City Council, Cassowary Coast Regional Council, Cairns Regional Council (including Douglas Shire) and Tablelands Regional Council (including Mareeba Shire).

Looking at the SA4 data first we see Cairns at a Trend of 95, which is a slight drop from June but that month was itself revised higher to 100 (from 93). The annual decline over the year now sits at 3.3%. When we look at the LGAs within the Cairns SA4 we see Cairns Regional Council at 68 (down from 69 in June, but that was revised up from 60) for an annual increase of 11%; Cassowary Coast Regional Council static at 8 and down 3% yr/ry while the Tablelands Regional Council also fell to 16 (after June was revised down to 18) for a 25% decline yr/yr.

Townsville SA4 now sits at 71 (after June was revised from 71 to 72) which is a 37% decline on the year. Townsville City Council figures show a Trend of 67 (after June was revised from 67 to 69) which is down 28% for the year.

When we look at the split between Greater Brisbane and the Rest of Queensland we see Greater Brisbane having fallen 14% on the year (to 2,302) while the Rest of Queensland is up 15% (to 1,701). The reason for the strength in the Rest of Queensland comes squarely from strong growth in the Gold Coast (+21% yr/yr) and the Sunshine Coast (+9%); these two regions alone account for two thirds of all approvals outside of Greater Brisbane.

The Conus Trend QLD Regional Building Approvals data-set is available for download below. Please feel free to use this data but we would appreciate you crediting Conus if you do so.

Conus Trend QLD Regional Building Apps – July 2016