Land sales flowing again

Land sales are improving but not quickly enough to fill the needs of Australia’s growing population, a new report shows.

The HIA-RP Data Residential Land Report provided by the Housing Industry Association and analytics provider RP Data shows a 13.6 per cent lift in residential land sales in the December 2012 quarter.

“That’s an encouraging result in its own right, following as it does a near 20 per cent drop in the September quarter,” said HIA Chief Economist, Harley Dale.

“However, the overall trajectory for land sales is inconsistent with a strong, broad-based recovery in new residential construction in 2013”, he added.

According to RP Data’s research director Tim Lawless, the increase in land sales over the final quarter of 2012 is a good sign, but he is looking for a trend of consistent recovery to emerge in the number of land sales.

“The lift in land sales over the December 2012 quarter hasn’t quite recovered the fall away in sales recorded over the previous quarter and, overall, the number of land sales remain well below average”, Lawless said.

“The broader housing market has seen a strong start to the year in 2013, with dwelling values rising 2.8 per cent over the first three months of the year.

“Transaction volumes for dwellings have also been showing a consistent improvement.

“Hopefully that implies that we should see another quarter of higher vacant land sales when the data becomes available in three months time.”

Lawless noted that while land sales remain historically low, the median sale price for vacant land across the capital cities and nationally is at a record high.

In the December 2012 quarter the weighted median residential land value in Australia increased by 1.2 per cent to $195,866. This value was 1.7 per cent higher when compared to the same period in 2011.

The median value for capital cities increased by 1.8 per cent in the December 2012 quarter to $223,085, 2.9 per cent higher than in the December 2011 quarter. The median value for Regional Australia was $154,370 in the December 2012 quarter.