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As we noted last week (see here), the decline in building approvals appears to have at least slowed. Today sees the release of the original ABS regional approvals data which allows us to update our Conus Trend series.
This shows that the bulk of the ‘improvement’, in the form of a slowing decline, is coming from the Greater Brisbane area where we see Trend approvals at 1,393 in November; up from 1,372 in October and just 4.5% below where they sat a year earlier. In the Rest of Queensland Trend approvals are at 1,054 which remains 16.5% below their level a year ago.
When we consider the Trend data at the SA4 level in our own region we see Cairns at 70 Trend approvals (down from 71 in Oct) which is 6.0% below a year earlier. Townsville also shows a slight drop (to 40 from 42) but remains 12.8% above the level a year ago. In Townsville this improvement is most welcome but we should bear in mind that approvals remain very far below historic levels and are still relatively close to all-time lows (as they are in Cairns). This data once again highlights the lack of any sign of a sustained improvement in residential construction in the North any time soon.
When we look at the Trend series at the LGA level we see Cairns Regional Council (inlc Douglas Shire) at 52 (+0.3% yr/yr), Cassowary Coast Regional Council at 5 (-18.5% yr/yr); Tablelands Regional Council (inlc Mareeba Shire) at 13 (-22.1% yr/yr) and Townsville City Council at 34 (+19.7% yr/yr).
The full Conus Regional Building Approvals Trend data for the QLD SA4 regions is available for download below. Please feel free to use this data but kindly acknowledge Conus when you do so.
Conus Regional Building Approvals Trend QLD – Nov 2019
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series