Building Approvals continue to improve…but it’s all down to Victoria

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, QLD, Uncategorized, VIC

Residential Building Approvals in February were up 19.9% m/m for a 5.8% decline over the year (seasonally adjusted). The less volatile Trend series showed a monthly increases of 1.0% for a decline of 2.5% over the year. While these are rather encouraging numbers (albeit from the pre-COVID-19 era) it should be noted that the improvement is almost all down to a surge in unit approvals in Victoria. Trend unit approvals in Victoria were up 49.8% y/y.

Across Australia Trend house approvals are down 3.6% for the year while unit approvals (on the back of the Victorian surge) are down just 0.8% y/y.

In Queensland seasonally adjusted approvals were down 5.2% q/q (after a revised 8.9% increase in Jan) for an year-on-year decline of 5.5%. The Trend series showed a small 0.4% increase for the quarter and a decline of just 3.5% for the year which is the best result in almost 2 years. House approvals (Trend) continue to improve and are now up 3.3% y/y, which is also the best result since May 2018 while units continue to slide down 18.3% y/y to their lowest level since March 2012.

The ABS will release their original regional building approvals data next week at which time we will be updating the Conus Trend series for all Queensland regions.