Sales of new homes continue to indicate the changing composition of new home building in 2013, the Housing Industry Association said this week.
HIA Chief Economist Dr Harley Dale noted that detached housing has been gaining momentum this year, while medium to high density housing has been losing ground.
“The leading home building indicators of both new home sales and building approvals are highlighting this trend”, Dale said.
The HIA New Home Sales report, a survey of Australia's largest volume builders, shows that total seasonally adjusted new home sales increased by 3.4 per cent in June 2013, representing a fourth consecutive rise.
Detached house sales increased by 7.3 per cent at the end of the 2012-13 financial year, while multi-unit sales dropped by 17.5 per cent.
“Last financial year was a tale of two halves for new home sales”, said Harley Dale.
“The first stanza was dominated by weakening detached house sales up against stronger multi-unit sales, the latter marked by an improving detached house segment occurring as the multi-unit market lost momentum.
“The overall result was that new home sales fell by 4.3 per cent in 2012/13 when compared to the 2011/12 financial year.”
In the month of June 2013 detached house sales increased by 19.7 per cent in Victoria, 7.1 per cent in Western Australia, 3.9 per cent in New South Wales, and 0.5 per cent in South Australia but fell by 11.0 per cent in Queensland.