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The ABS have released their original, unadjusted December residential building approvals data for the regions this morning which allows us to update our own Conus Regional Building Approval Trend series. Given the poor showing at the state and national level that we saw last week, which showed a trend decline of 24.7% y/y at the national level and a fall of 29.6% for Queensland, it is perhaps no surprise to see the regional data also very weak.
Greater Brisbane Trend approvals have fallen to their lowest level since June 2013 at 1,408 (down 35.3% for the year) while the Rest of Queensland has dropped to its lowest level since June 2011 at just 1,193 (down 21.5% for the year).
When we break the data down further into the SA4 regions we see Cairns at 77 approvals (down 26.6% y/y) and Townsville at just 31 (down 55.8% y/y and its lowest level ever).
The only region which has seen an improvement over the year is the Sunshine Coast where Trend approvals are up 3.2% for the year.
The data at the Local Govt Area level in our own region show Cairns Regional Council (incl Douglas Shire) at 57 (down 15.1% y/y); the Cassowary Coast Regional Council at 5 (down 37.6% y/y); Tablelands Regional Council (incl Mareeba Shire) at 17 (down 34.5% y/y) and Townsville City Council at a new low of just 26 (down 50.9% y/y, and down from Trend levels around 156 four years ago!).
The full set of Conus Regional Building Approvals Trend data for the Queensland SA4 regions is available for download below. Please feel free to use this data but kindly acknowledge Conus when you use it.
Conus Regional Building Approvals Trend QLD – Dec 2018
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series
February 11th, 2019 at 3:11 am
Out of interest what would the Cairns numbers look like without the Nova approvals? There should be a report from WCG to the Singapore Exchange this week or next but in the current climate and previously reported sales history there is a question on whether this project has legs this year let alone time to completion.
February 11th, 2019 at 3:30 am
It’s a good question. Actually the short-term blip in Apr/May last year caused by the Nova City approvals has actually almost washed out of the Trend already (beauty of Trend over the simple moving average!). I’ve gone back and recalculated after removing a total of 326 approvals across those two months (bit of a guess and happy to be corrected with the actual number if you have them) and the Trend for CRC drops from 57 this month to 54. Pete