DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Dec 15	Nov 15 to Dec 15	Dec 14 to Dec 15
		no.	% change	% change
TREND
	Total dwelling units approved	18 161	-0.1	-3.0
	Private sector houses	9 590	0.1	1.4
	Private sector dwellings excluding houses	8 437	-0.1	-5.9
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED
	Total dwelling units approved	18 868	9.2	-2.5
	Private sector houses	9 868	5.4	4.5
	Private sector dwellings excluding houses	8 839	12.8	-6.5

Dwelling units approved

Private sector houses approved

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


TOTAL DWELLING UNITS

• The trend estimate for total dwellings approved fell 0.1% in December and has fallen for eight months.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwellings approved rose 9.2% in December following a fall of 12.4% in the previous month.

PRIVATE SECTOR HOUSES

• The trend estimate for private sector houses approved rose 0.1% in December and has risen for three months.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for private sector houses rose 5.4% in December after falling for three months.

PRIVATE SECTOR DWELLINGS EXCLUDING HOUSES

• The trend estimate for private sector dwellings excluding houses fell 0.1% in December and has fallen for nine months.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for private sector dwellings excluding houses rose 12.8% in December following a fall of 22.1% in the previous month.

VALUE OF BUILDING APPROVED

• The trend estimate of the value of total building approved rose 0.2% in December after falling for four months. The value of residential building rose 0.1% after falling for seven months. The value of non-residential building rose 0.4% and has risen for nine months.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate of the value of total building approved rose 1.1% in December following a fall of 3.8% in the previous month. The value of residential building rose 4.7% following a fall of 8.9% in the previous month. The value of non-residential building fell 6.1% following a rise of 8.2% in the previous month.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
December 2016 - Additional	10 February 2016
January 2016	1 March 2016
January 2016 - Additional	8 March 2016
February 2016	4 April 2016
February 2016 - Additional	11 April 2016
March 2016	3 May 2016

DATA NOTES

A number of time series spreadsheets contain ‘np’ (not available for publication) annotations. This is due to confidential data being contained in these series.

Small area data cubes will be released in an “Additional Information” release five business days after the main publication. The data cubes will be for Statistical Area Level 2 and Local Government Areas. Release dates are published under the “Forthcoming Issues” section of the publication and in ABS Release Advice.

Seasonally adjusted estimates of the value of non-residential building jobs at the state level should be used with caution due to difficulty in estimating the seasonal pattern for these series. For more information on the seasonal adjustment process, please refer to paragraphs 16 to 22 of the explanatory notes.

For the January Building Approvals release each year, the ABS provides additional detail regarding the revisions that have been made to Building Approvals data prior to the beginning of the previous financial year. For the forthcoming January 2016 release, revisions will be provided for the time period from July 2011 to June 2014 and will include revisions resulting from the Building Approvals Annual Review. The Building Approvals Annual Review has been operating since July 2015, requesting historical data back to the most recent Annual Review. A feature article will be included with the January 2016 Building Approvals publication explaining the Annual Review and other potential sources of revisions in more detail.


REVISIONS THIS MONTH

Revisions to the total number of dwelling units approved in this issue are:

Dwellings	2014-15	2015-16	TOTAL
NSW	1	25	26
Vic.	-	57	57
Qld	151	241	392
SA	3	-2	1
WA	35	24	59
Tas.	-	-20	-20
NT	-	-	-
ACT	-	50	50
Total	190	375	565
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.