New home starts rise in Australia, latest quarterly data shows

New home starts in Australia increased by 2% in the third quarter of 2012, the second quarterly improvement in a row, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

With 37,027 commencements, it was the strongest quarterly result in over a year and was helped by the 75 basis points cut from the official cash rate over May and June last year, said Housing Industry Association (HIA) economist, Geordan Murray.
 
Rescheduling of the ABS’s data releases means this is the first look at the dwelling commencements figures for the September 2012 quarter and is around a month later than previously.

In seasonally adjusted terms the number of detached dwelling commencements increased by 4.3% in the first quarter of the 2012/2013 financial year, although remains slightly below, 1.4%, compared to the level of a year ago.
 
There was decline of 1.3% in the number of multi-unit dwellings commenced in the quarter, but the level remains 5.1% higher than the level recorded in the corresponding quarter a year ago.
 
New South Wales posted an encouraging result with a 9.5% increase in commencements in the quarter, although it is likely to be influenced by changes to government incentives that occurred around this time. The headline result was underpinned by a substantial 18.8% lift in detached dwelling commencements as well as a 1.8% lift in multi unit commencements.

Seasonally adjusted dwelling commencements increased in Victoria by 2.9% and in Western Australia by 23.6%. But the number of commencements fell by 14.2% in Queensland, by 9.4% in South Australia, by 0.4% in Tasmania, by 29.9% in the Northern Territories and by 3.3% in the Australian Capital Territory.