Australia's building activity saw a decline in the June quarter, with the total number of dwelling commencements falling by 1.1% to 40,293 in seasonally adjusted terms, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The decrease was primarily driven by a 7.4% drop in new private sector other residential commencements, which fell to 13,756 dwellings.
This followed a 1.4% rise in the March quarter. In contrast, new private sector house commencements rose by 1.7%, reaching 25,732 dwellings, continuing the momentum from a 5.7% increase in the previous quarter.
Overall, there were 221,533 total sector dwellings under construction in the June quarter, with 88,235 of these being new houses.
The number of dwellings completed during the June quarter totaled 44,853 in seasonally adjusted terms. Of these, 28,228 were private new houses, marking an 11.4% increase from the March quarter and a 3.5% rise year-on-year.
Private new other residential completions also saw a marginal increase of 0.4% to 15,691 dwellings.
The value of total building work done during the quarter dropped slightly by 0.2% to A$34.0 billion. This decline was largely attributed to a 0.4% fall in the value of new residential building work, which totalled $17.1 billion. This followed a modest 0.6% increase in the March quarter.
Non-residential building work also saw a slight decrease of 0.2% to $14.1 billion, though it remained 0.4% higher year-on-year. In contrast, work on alterations and additions to residential buildings rose 0.6% to $2.8 billion.