Apartment market drags down new home sales
New home sales have continued to decline from record highs.
New home sales have continued to decline from record highs.New figures from the Housing Industry Association (HIA) has revealed a 3.7% monthly decline for new home sales in July. Sales for the calendar year to the end of July are 4.6% lower than the same period last year, the HIA said.
“This trend is consistent with HIA’s expectation that activity will decline modestly from these record high levels over a number of years,” HIA principal economist Tim Reardon said.
Reardon said new home sales have continued to decline since their peak in mid-2015.
“July’s result was driven by a 15.7% decline in multi-unit sales and a more measured reduction in detached house sales. The large drop in multi-unit sales this month is in contrast to strong sales volumes late in 2016 and early 2017,” Reardon said.
Victoria bucked the trend, Reardon said, with a 9.8% rise in new home sales on “what is already a very high level of activity”.
“On the other hand, the Western Australian Government’s First Home Buyers Grant ended on 30 June 2017, and as a consequence sales in July fell sharply from what was already a very low base,” Reardon said.
