ABS Building Approvals show that the total number of dwellings approved fell 7.9 per cent in May 2011, in seasonally adjusted terms, after falling 0.3 per cent in April.
Dwelling approvals decreased for the month of May in Victoria (-18.5 per cent), New South Wales (-15.6 per cent) and Tasmania (-0.4 per cent) while South Australia (+5.7 per cent), Western Australia (+3.0 per cent) and Queensland (+1.2 per cent) recorded increases in seasonally adjusted terms.
In seasonally adjusted terms, approvals for private sector houses rose 0.7 per cent in May with rises in Victoria (5.2 per cent), New South Wales (3.0 per cent) and South Australia (1.5 per cent) while there were falls in Western Australia (-8.2 per cent) and Queensland (-1.4 per cent).
The value of total building approved fell 2.8 per cent in May in seasonally adjusted terms. The value of total residential building fell by 2.7 per cent while non-residential building fell by 3.0 per cent after a 41.3 per cent fall in April.
Housing Industry Association Senior Economist, Andrew Harvey commented: “It was another poor result for overall building approvals, driven by a considerable fall in approvals for the other dwellings sector, which are down by 21.0 per cent in the month of May.
“Notwithstanding that the ¨other dwellings¨ component is notoriously volatile, today´s total level of building approvals is the lowest monthly result since June 2009 and is yet another indicator that home building levels in Australia have further to fall from an already floundering level,” said Andrew Harvey.
Further information is available in Building Approvals, Australia (cat no. 8731.0).
