The HIA says the decline in new home sales which commenced in 2015 has continued with a 6.1 per cent reduction during September 2017.
The results are contained in the latest edition of the HIA New Home Sales Report the market’s leading gauge of sales activity in residential building across the five largest states. During September 2017, new detached house sales fell by 4.5 with a reduction of 16.7 per cent on the multi-unit side of the market.
During September 2017, NSW was the only state to see growth in new detached house sales (+3.7 per cent) compared with August. WA experienced the largest reduction in sales during September (-15.1 per
cent) followed by Queensland (-8.7 per cent). New detached house sales also fell in Victoria (-2.3 per cent) and SA (-1.7 per cent) during September.“The decline in home sales over the past 18 months reflects the slowing in output across the economy and is a guide to short term activity in the residential building industry,” HIA Senior Economist, Shane Garret said.
“New home sales is a leading indicator of approvals data and shows that building activity peaked in March 2016 following the longest ever upturn in new home building.
“This process of adjustment will involve quite sizeable reductions both in building activity on the ground.
We expect that activity will bottom out sometime in 2019 with a recovery then setting in – assuming the economy reverts to its long-term average growth rate of around 3 per cent,” concluded Shane Garrett.
