The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has recorded a mild dip of 2.2 percent for new dwellings sales in January.
HIA chief economist, Dr Harley Dale said the weaker update on its New Home Sales Report follows a decent run for new home sales in December.
“Given that Australia is tailing off from the largest and longest new home building cycle in history, both the total and sub-component profiles for new home sales are still in very good shape,” Dale said in statement on Tuesday.
“There aren’t many sectors punching above their weight in the nation’s economy right now, so the profile for new home sales is also good news for Australia as a whole.”
“HIA’s latest forecasts for new dwelling commencements will be released on Thursday and they will paint a healthy short term picture for residential construction.
“There is nothing to be seen in this latest update for new home sales or from any other recent leading indicator results to deter us from this outlook,” he said.
The January update for the HIA’s monthly New Home Sales survey revealed a decline of 1.5 percent in detached house sales following a similar fall of 1.6 percent in December last year.
Detached house sales fell by a very modest 1.1 percent over the three months to January down by four percent when compared to the same period 12 months previously.
The sale of ‘multi-units’ dropped by 4.3 percent in January following an increase of 6.4 percent in last December.
Over the three months to January 2017 multi-unit sales increased by 4.8 percent to a level 9.0 percent higher than the comparable period a year earlier.
Seasonally adjusted new detached house sales increased by 12.1 percent in Western Australia in January following a sharp decline of 9.1 percent last December.
In January, detached house sales fell by 6.8 percent in New South Wales, 4.1 percent in Victoria, two percent in Queensland, and 1.4 percent in South Australia.
