Building Approvals disappoint, although QLD does a little better

Posted on October 3, 2018 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, QLD, Uncategorized

The residential building approvals data for August has, once again, disappointed a market that had been looking for a small increase on the month. Seasonally adjusted data showed a 9.4% m/m decline with approvals now down 13.6% for the year. However, in such a volatile data series that is so susceptible to large swings in unit approvals, we much prefer the less exciting Trend series. This too shows a decline, but of just 1.9% with the year on year fall of 9.1%. Over the course of the past 12 months unit approvals across Australia have fallen 15.0% while house approvals are down 3.9%.

The results are somewhat better for Queensland (when considering the Trend…even more relevant at the State level) with the month on month number unchanged and a 1.8% decline for the year. Unlike at the national level, in the Sunshine State unit approvals are up 15.9% for the year while it is house approvals that have been in decline (-11.7%).

The regional approvals data will be released by the ABS next week at which time we shall update our own Conus Trend series for the QLD SA4 regions.