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Finance approvals and housing construction are continuing to grow, although there has been a sharp fall in the purchase of new dwellings.
There were 52,460 finance approvals for owner-occupied homes in February, according to figures released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
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That volume represents a 15.2 per cent year-on-year increase and a 2.3 per cent month-on-month increase.
The value of owner-occupier finance approvals also recorded 21.2 per cent annual growth and 1.9 per cent monthly growth, while the value of investor finance approvals jumped 36.3 per cent year-on-year and 4.4 per cent monthly.
There were 6,139 dwellings built in February, an annual rise of 21.4 per cent and a monthly rise of 0.8 per cent.
Purchases of new dwellings grew 3.9 per cent annually but suffered a 5.0 per cent monthly fall. Purchases of established dwellings recorded 15.5 per cent annual growth and 3.0 per cent monthly growth.
Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan said the results were largely in line with expectations.
“Abstracting from monthly volatility, the approvals data continues to show more signs of 'topping out' after a strong surge in 2013,” he said.
“Annualised trend growth in new owner-occupier finance approvals averaged 14.5 per cent in 2013 but has been running at 3.9 per cent so far in 2014.”
