The slide in house prices slowed in June, now building approvals for May have shown a small sign of slowing on an annual basis. Are we seeing a bottoming out in the weak home building and renovation sector?
Building approvals were down 19.6%year-on-year in May, an improvement on the 24.2% drop in April and slightly better than market forecasts for a fall of 21.5%.
That’s hardly a dramatic improvement, so instead of a bounce after the result of the May 18 poll as some hysterical commentators were claiming yesterday it has to be put aside and we have to await the housing finance data next week and then the June approvals in a months time.
Approvals for private sector houses fell a seasonally adjusted 0.3%, but the “other dwellings” category that includes apartments and townhouses, rose 1.2% to lift the overall figure.
In trend terms, the NT was the biggest monthly loser with a 6.1% in overall approvals, but apartment building helped the two most populous states of NSW and Victoria post rises of 0.7% and 1.5% respectively.
That is the most volatile part of the data and the improvement could be put down to delays in local councils and approvals being bunched up and bulk approved.
