Queensland regional building approval fall to a 3 year low

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Pete Faulkner - Building Approvals, Cairns, QLD, Townsville, Uncategorized

With Australian and Queensland residential building approvals having fallen again in May (see here for details) it’s perhaps no surprise to see approvals at the regional level also falling. Based on our own Conus Trend series derived from the original ABS data at SA4 level, we see that Trend approvals in the Rest of Queensland fell in May to 1,397; their lowest level since April 2015 and down 12.4% for the year. Approvals in Greater Brisbane are also down, 8.8% y/y, but remain higher than they were in March last year.

Obviously the regional centres did not see the ramp up in unit approvals witnessed by the capital during 2015-16, but disappointingly they have fallen further. Since the recent lows (Mar 2009 for Greater Brisbane and Mar 2011 for Rest of Queensland), Greater Brisbane is now more than 105% higher while the regions are only 29% up.

Considering the data at the SA4 level we see that Cairns (where data is being heavily distorted by a large unit development approvals last month) had Trend approvals dip slightly to 150 (still up 51.3% from a year ago) while Townsville continues its slide to Trend approvals at just 53 (down 33.2% from a year ago) after April was also revised sharply lower.

At the Local Government Area level (again using our Conus Trend series) we see;

Cairns Regional Council (incl Douglas Shire); 111 +95.4% y/y
Cassowary Coast Regional Council; 5 -22.4% y/y
Tablelands Regional Council (incl Mareeba Shire); 20 +7.6%
Townsville City Council; 46 -36.2%

The complete set of SA4 level Conus Trend data is available for download below. Please feel free to use this (for non-commercial purposes) but we would appreciate you acknowledging Conus when you do so.

Conus Trend Regional Building Approvals QLD – May 2018