The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its monthly building approvals data for December 2024, which found that while approvals increased from 2023, they are still well below the target to meet housing demand.
Housing Industry Association Economist, Maurice Tapang, said that there were 15,170 residential dwellings approved in the month of December 2024, which was relatively unchanged compared to the previous month.
“Detached house approvals fell by 2.8 per cent in the month of December to 8,860, while multi-units increased by 6.0 per cent to 6,310,” Mr Tapang said.
“This brought the volume of approvals in the 2024 calendar year to 170,720, up by 3.9 per cent compared to the decade-low levels of 2023 but well below anything seen in the preceding ten years.
“Owner-occupiers and investors are returning to the market, albeit very slowly and inconsistently across the different regions and housing types.
“Detached house approvals in Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia strengthened, while New South Wales remained exceptionally weak.
“Multi-unit approvals, which include semi-detached dwellings and apartments, fell to just half of those levels seen in the mid-2010s, during the apartment boom.”
Mr Tapang said that it remains a challenging environment given the higher cost of borrowing, land and building a new home.
“The cost of delivering new land to market also remains high, with land prices continuing to increase.
“The second quarter of the National Housing Accord saw just 45,850 dwellings approved for construction. Australia needs to build 60,000 new homes each quarter to reach the 1.2 million target.
“In order to build more homes, meet underlying demand and addressing the housing crisis, governments should help remove the barriers to increasing housing supply.
“This includes helping lower the cost of delivering shovel-ready land to market, reducing the tax imposts on new homes and investors and addressing constraints with labour supply.”
Mr Tapang said that detached house approvals in Australia increased by 7.0 per cent in the 2024 calendar year.
“Across the states and territories, Western Australia saw the strongest growth in house approvals, up by 41.8 per cent compared to 2023. This was followed by Queensland (+10.9 per cent), South Australia (+7.9 per cent) and Victoria (+1.5 per cent). House approvals fell the most in the Australian Capital Territory, down 24.5 per cent compared to 2023, followed by Tasmania (-11.6 per cent), the Northern Territory (-5.6 per cent) and New South Wales (-4.7 per cent).
“Multi-unit approvals increased in Western Australia, up more than double (+124.1 per cent), followed by Tasmania (+9.7 per cent), Victoria (+2.7 per cent), Queensland (+1.6 per cent) and South Australia (+0.4 per cent). Declines were recorded in the Australian Capital Territory (-58.2 per cent), followed by the Northern Territory (-19.0 per cent) and New South Wales (-5.8 per cent).
