The figures when they are broken down also show that sales of new detached houses increased by 0.3% and multi unit properties by 1.6%.
According to Shane Garrett, senior economist with the Housing Industry Association, the voice of Australia’s residential building industry, new home sales have been rising pretty steadily since the third quarter of 2012.
Growth is being encouraged by falling interest rates and the return of confidence to the housing market. ‘The return of house price growth to most cities has done much to oil the market and allow transactions to start occurring in greater numbers,’ he explained.
He also pointed out that compared with the same month last year, new home sales were up by 17% and the three months to January saw an annual increase of 22.3% compared with the same quarter 12 months earlier.
The HIA recently published its series of Outlook reports, which revised its forecasts for new home commencements upwards for 2014. ‘This year, we expect about 165,600 commencements, followed by 168,000 starts in 2015. Accordingly, we should continue to see stronger sales activity in the coming years,’ said Garrett.
However, he added that it is important to bear in mind that the new home sales recovery has not benefitted all states. ‘State governments will be framing their budgets in the coming months, and it is vital that their policies work to sustain the housing market recovery,’ Garrett said.
The figures also reveal considerable regional variations in sales of new homes. New private detached house sales increased by 10.9% in Victoria and by 0.4% in Queensland. But New detached house sales declined by 6.9% in South Australia, by 6.4% in New South Wales and by 1.9% in Western Australia.
During the three months ending in January 2014, new detached house sales increased in South Australia by 50.4%, by 17.8% in Queensland and by 6.2% in New South Wales.
But new detached house sales declined by 1.1% in Western Australia and by 12.3% in Victoria over the same three month period.
