Improving Building Approvals in QLD being driven by Greater Brisbane

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, Cairns, QLD, Uncategorized

Last week’s building approvals data showed approvals in November across Australia remained down 7.7% from a year earlier. In Queensland the result was better with a 5.0% increase.

However, the data today of the regional breakdown of those numbers, when seen through the lens of the Conus Trend, show that this apparent recovery is coming all from Greater Brisbane rather than also being witnessed in regional Queensland (which should be a concern given the movement of people into the regions and the very low vacancy rates already causing issues in so many regional areas). Trend approvals in Greater Brisbane are up 7.7% from a year earlier and now sit at their highest level since March 2018. In the Rest of Queensland the Trend is up just 1.1%.

This (small) increase in regional approvals is showing up as a some very different results across the various Queensland regions; Central QLD (+26.2% y/y), Gold Coast (+21.9%), Mackay (+15.5%) and Toowoomba (+18.3%) sit in stark contrast to areas such as Cairns (-28.6%), Darling Downs (-16.0%) and Townsville (-41.7%).

The complete Conus Regional Building Approvals Trend data-set for all the Queensland 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 QLD – Nov 2021