Victoria's detached house sales up in February: HIA
Detached house sales increased in Western Australia and Victoria in February with Victoria posting a monthly gain of 5.1 percent and Western Australia by 11.3 percent, according to the Housing industry Association.
Harley Dale, HIA chief economist said total movement nationwide shows a 0.2 percent increase in February 2017.
“There was also very little movement in the two sub-series with detached house sales ticking down by 0.1 percent in February and the sales of ‘multi-units’ growing by 1.0 percent," he said.
“The profiles for HIA detached house sales and ABS detached house building approvals are very similar. In the case of detached house sales, over the three months to February this year the volume fell by 2.2 percent to a level 5.2 percent lower than achieved over the three months to February last year.
“The updates that we are receiving for these two key leading indicators of new home building activity are consistent with a modest reduction in national new detached house commencements in 2016/17.
"We are forecasting a decline of 2 percent in detached house commencements in Australia in 2016/17 following a similar-sized fall of 1 percent in 2015/16.
“As with all aspects of the current housing cycle there are large differences in conditions for detached housing between states and territories. HIA’s detached house sales series for the five mainland states has been consistently highlighting this point for some years now.
“In 2017 we expect the profile for leading indicators such as detached house sales to slowly improve for Western Australia and South Australia. At the same time the volume of detached house sales on the eastern seaboard is expected to trend lower.”
Detached house sales increased in two out of five mainland states in February 2017 - Western Australia and Victoria. Detached house sales in WA increased by 11.3 per cent in February 2017 following a rise of 12.1 per cent in January. Note that these rates of growth are exaggerated by the extremely low base for detached house sales. Detached house sales in Victoria posted a monthly gain of 5.1 per cent in February. Elsewhere for the mainland states, in February detached house sales fell by 12.6 per cent in New South Wales and were down by 5.7 per cent in Queensland and 0.2 per cent in South Australia.