New homes sales in Australia down over 6% in September

New home sales in Australia fell further in September from their peak in 2015, marking 18 months of decline, the latest data shows.

They fell by 6.1% during September with detached home sales down by 4.5% and multi-unit sales down by 16.7%, according to the latest new home sales marker report from the Housing Industry Association (HIA).

‘The decline in home sales over the past 18 months reflects the slowing in output across the economy and is a guide to short term activity in the residential building industry,’ said HIA senior economist, Shane Garrett.

He pointed out that new home sales is a leading indicator of approvals data and shows that building activity peaked in March 2016 following the longest ever upturn in new home building.

‘This process of adjustment will involve quite sizeable reductions both in building activity on the ground. We expect that activity will bottom out sometime in 2019 with a recovery then setting in, assuming the economy reverts to its long term average growth rate of around 3%,’ he added.

A breakdown of the figures shows that New South Wales was the only state to see growth in new detached house sales with a month on month rise of 3.7% while Western Australia recorded the largest reduction in sales with a fall of 15.1%.

New home sales fell by 2.3% in Victoria and by 1.7% in South Australia, the HIA report data also shows.