Apartment trend drives ongoing rise in housing approvals

There were 19,419 housing approvals in March, which was 0.7 per cent higher than the previous record figure of 19,282 set in January.

It was also 6.4 per cent higher than the record before that, which was the 18,245 approvals for November.

The scale of the growth in housing approvals can be seen in a year-on-year comparison: the March 2015 result was 23.6 per cent bigger than the March 2014 result.

This was mainly driven by private sector unit approvals, which jumped 59.2 per cent to 9,710. Private sector house approvals climbed 1.6 per cent to 9,551.

Master Builders Australia chief economist Peter Jones said Australia was now on track to record 220,000 approvals in 2014/2015, which would equate to a monthly average of 18,333 approvals.

“The rise in building approvals for March confirms the positive outlook for the housing market will continue amid signs of growth in detached houses, which have flatlined for 12 months, lagging behind high-rise apartments,” he said.

Housing Industry Association senior economist Shane Garrett said homebuilding is providing a valuable boost to Australia’s sluggish economy.

“New homebuilding continues to benefit from the exceptionally low level of interest rates, as well as strong population growth over recent years in the key home buyer age group,” he said.

“While growth in multi-unit approvals has been very strong, the detached house side of the market has been pretty flat over the past year.

“It is important that constraints around planning and land supply are tackled in order to ensure that detached house building activity delivers on its full potential.”