New home sales weakened in February, dropping by 5.3 per cent according to the Housing Institute of Australia (HIA).
HIA chief economist Harley Dale said that despite improved results for New South Wales and Victoria, a pull-back in Queensland and Western Australia dragged aggregate sales down.
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“We saw a relatively big lift to sales in January thanks to a strong boost from the resource rich states. However, as suspected, this situation has proven to be unsustainable,” Mr Dale said.
In the short-term Mr Dale said there was no sign of any upward momentum in new home sales or building approvals and that leading indicators of new home building were likely to be flat, at best, for the remainder of 2007/08.
Published: 01-04-08