Another month of very strong Building Approvals in the North

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, Cairns, QLD, Townsville, Uncategorized

Last month we wrote of a surge in residential building approvals in the North. This month the story is even stronger.

Following last week’s data December release which showed year-on-year residential building approvals up 23% nationally and 83% in Queensland today we got the regional data release from the ABS which allows us to update our regional Conus Trend series.

This showed that, although Greater Brisbane is doing better than the regions, the North performed particularly well (again). Clearly the impact of low interest rates, home building incentives and a growth in net migration into the state (and particularly the regions) is having its effect on residential approvals.

Conus Trend Approvals in Greater Brisbane were up 91% y/y in December while in the Rest of Queensland the rise was an only-slightly- less impressive 74%.

Within the City it self we saw particularly strong growth in the East (+85%) and Inner-City (+151%) while Moreton Bay -South (+148%) and Ipswich (+121%) did well elsewhere.

Although the Rest of Queensland did a little worse than the capital this is due to the fact that the Gold Coast was up just 23% y/y and the Sunshine Coast managed ‘only’ a 46% lift; everywhere else in the regions posted significant gains of over 100% y/y. Few were more impressive than Cairns which registered a 144% lift to its highest level since May 2008. Townsville also moved sharply higher, up 161% to a 6 year high.

When we consider the data at the LGA level we see Cairns Regional Council (incl Douglas Shire) up 91%; Cassowary Coast Regional Council up 71% and Tablelands Regional Council (incl Mareeba Shire) up 128% to its highest level since Aug 2008. Townsville City Council run of two consecutive month of original approvals data above 100 came to an end (original approvals stood at 79 in Dec) although the Trend still managed to move higher and was up 104% for the year (almost to a 6 year high).

The full Conus Trend data set is available for download below. Please feel free to use this but kindly acknowledge Conus when you do so.

Conus Regional Building Approvals Trend QLD – Dec 2020