Highest ever housing starts breaks all time record

The highest level of dwelling starts since records began was achieved in the September 2014 quarter, in line with Master Builders Australia’s Building and Construction Industry Forecasts.

“There was a huge and historic lift in dwelling commencements with an all-time record high of 54,400 starts,” Peter Jones Chief Economist of Master Builders Australia said.

“In seasonally adjusted terms, starts jumped a massive 12.5 per cent in the September quarter, with strong increases in NSW, Queensland and the ACT,” he said.

“The record highs are predominantly driven by multi-unit dwellings with New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and Western Australia recording their strongest ever quarters for construction of apartments,” Peter Jones said.

“In the year to September, there were 192,636 starts in Australia, up by 17.4 per cent in annual terms. Led by Queensland (25.8 per cent), all states recorded strong growth with low to negative annual growth in yearly starts recorded in both the territories,” he said.

“The latest data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics also shows a welcome rise in the number of actual dwellings completed (168,000) in the year to September quarter and confirms that residential building continues to gain momentum,” Peter Jones said.

“Nevertheless, there is a long way to go before construction of new housing even gets close to meeting the shortfall built up by a decade of underbuilding at a time of strong population growth,” he said.

“Governments at all levels must focus on further reforms to ensure supply-side impediments and bottlenecks do not stymie the residential building upturn,” Peter Jones said.

Ends…

In seasonally adjusted terms, starts increased by 12.5 per cent in the September quarter (over June Quarter).

In original terms, the September quarter result was 25.3 per cent up on the correspoinding quarter a year ago. By State:

In the four quarters to September, there were 192,636 starts in Australia, up by 17.4 per cent on the corresponding year to September 2013