Building Approvals down again…and QLD’s bottoming-out appears to have been a false dawn

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, QLD, Uncategorized

The release of Building Approvals data for August is yet another disappointing set of numbers. Trend approvals fell 3.9% m/m and are now down 25.6% y/y. House approvals are down 15.8% y/y while units are off 38.8% y/y.

For the past few months the data has suggested (see here) that we might have been witnessing something of a bottoming-out in the QLD data; today’s release (and revisions to prior months) now makes that hope appear like a false dawn. Trend approvals fell by 2.3% m/m and are now down 25.2% for the year. What had been some very modest Trend monthly improvements have now been revised away to falls over the past 4 months with only March and April still (slightly) positive. House approvals are down 20.0% while units fell by 33.4%.

Next week will see the release of the regional original data by the ABS which will allow us to update our Conus Regional Building Approvals Trend series for QLD SA4s and our regions LGAs.