Building

New home sales steady

sydney housing stock image

“New Home Sales and Housing Finance data indicate that the housing market has stabilised over the past 6 months,” stated HIA Economist, Angela Lillicrap.

The HIA New Home Sales report – a monthly survey of the largest volume home builders in the five largest states – is a leading indicator of future trends in the residential building industry.

“New home sales remained steady in the three months to October (2019) compared to the previous three months and are now only 3.1 per cent lower than this time last year (2018) when the market began to cool,” added Ms Lillicrap.

“At this time last year (2018) the market for new homes was cooling rapidly. Sales have now returned to levels similar to this time last year (2018).

“Both this ‘New Home Sales’ report and the ABS Housing Finance data suggest that the bottom of this cycle occurred in April 2019, with signs of an improvement since then.

“There are no indications that new home sales are returning to the levels experienced in the boom years of 2015 to 2017. But the improvement over the past 6 months suggests that this downturn will not be deep, in comparison to previous cycles.

“Wider economic conditions remain positive, just not as buoyant as the market has come to expect. Exports are continuing to exceed all forecasts, unemployment remains stable and the number of people participating in the labour market has been growing which is an indicator of a healthy labour market,” concluded Ms Lillicrap.

Across the country, new home sales was relatively flat in Western Australia (0.0 per cent), Victoria (-1.2 per cent) and South Australia (-1.0 per cent) compared to the previous three month period. Queensland increased by 5.7 per cent while New South Wales declined by 4.9 per cent for the three months to October 2019.

Source: HIA