New home sales volumes in February crept up slightly, a new report shows.
The latest HIA - JELD-WEN New Home Sales Report, a survey of Australia’s major residential builders, showed that the number of new homes sold edged up by 0.6 per cent in February 2011. Detached house sales increased by 1.5 per cent, but the sale of multi-units dropped by 7.6 per cent.
The February report found that detached new house sales increased by 0.9 per cent in New South Wales and by 2.9 per cent in Victoria. Sales fell by 13.3 per cent in Queensland, with the natural disasters in the state having a significant negative impact. Sales were down by 4.3 per cent in South Australia and by 2.2 per cent in Western Australia.
HIA chief economist, Dr Harley Dale, said that new home sales in February 2011 failed to materially improve on an encouraging start to the year seen in January.
“The risk was for a weaker result than what we saw for February. Nevertheless, new home sales are running at volumes considerably below those experienced during the stimulus-driven run of 2009 and early 2010, while both local government building approvals and new housing loan approvals are trending down once more,” Dale said.
“At the very time when new home conditions need to be continually improving we are faced with compelling evidence of a considerably weaker 2011 compared to last year,” Dale said.
“Interest rates are on hold for now and that is a tick in the box for the housing industry, but an upward bias to rates remains in play. The onus is on Federal and state governments to reinvigorate the policy reform process to reduce the excessive costs of new housing.”
