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Total dwelling approvals dropped by 5.6 per cent in the year to July 2018, the weakest year-on-year result since August 2017, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed that total dwelling approvals fell by 5.2 per cent in July and 5.6 per cent year-on-year.
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The drop was driven by a 6.2 per cent decline in the number of apartments approved, with the ABS reporting a slighter fall of 2.8 per cent in house approvals.
Reacting to the data, ANZ noted: “Apartments drove the bulk of the fall, again as expected given the strength of this category in the prior month.
“Dwelling approvals are clearly trending lower, consistent with the signal from the housing finance data.”
However, the ABS data revealed that non-residential dwelling approvals rose by 31.5 per cent in July, following four months of consecutive declines.
“The strong gain in the value of non-residential approvals [reflects] a big jump in office approvals in NSW especially and Victoria to a lesser extent,” ANZ added.
“Non-residential approvals can be very lumpy from the month-to-month, but the strength in July is encouraging and it was sufficient to mean the value of non-residential approvals is no longer trending lower.”
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