Australian dwelling approvals dropped by 14.9% in December, weighed down by plunging approvals for apartments.
The total seasonally-adjusted number of dwellings approved fell to 15,542 in December, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said today. Despite the monthly decline, this is an 0.4% rise year-over-year.
“The drop in total dwellings was driven by a 29.8 per cent fall in approvals for private dwellings excluding houses. This follows a 29.6 per cent rise in this series in November,” said ABS head of construction statistics Daniel Rossi.
“'While the fall in December was large, it came off the back of last month which had the highest number of private sector dwellings excluding houses approved since June 2018.”
Private sector house construction approvals were 9,487, up 0.4% month-over-month and 5.7% from the previous year.
Approvals for private dwellings excluding houses were 5,855, which was also a 6.1% drop from one year prior. This includes apartments, townhouses, terrace houses, and semi-detached houses.
Apartment approvals fell 37.6% to 3,740, 14% lower than the 12-month average, after surging 63.7% in November. This was largely due to Victoria, where just 339 apartments were approved in December, compared with 1,496 in November.
New South Wales saw the largest number of dwellings approved at 4,133, though this is a 14.3% monthly drop. Victoria reported the second-most at 3,514, a 32.2% monthly decrease.
The total value of approved construction fell 12.3% to A$16.32 billion, following a 12.9% increase in November. Approved residential building value declined 16.% to $9.49 billion after November’s record high, while non-residential building value was down 6.4% to $6.83 billion.
