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Building Approvals, Australia

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Provides the number of dwelling units and value of buildings approved

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Reference period
September 2020
Released
2/11/2020
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Key statistics

  • The seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwellings approved rose 15.4% in September.
  • Private sector dwellings excluding houses rose 23.4%, while private sector houses rose 9.7%, in seasonally adjusted terms.
  • The seasonally adjusted estimate for the value of non-residential building approved fell 36.7%.

Main features

September key figures
  Sep 20Aug 20 to Sep 20Sep 19 to Sep 20
  no.%%
Seasonally adjusted   
 Total dwelling units approved15 827  15.4   8.8
 Private sector houses10 238    9.7 20.7
 Private sector dwellings excluding houses  5 189  23.4-12.1

 

The number of dwellings approved in Australia rose 15.4% in September, in seasonally adjusted terms. The rise was driven by private sector dwellings excluding houses, which increased by 23.4% in September, but remains 12.1% lower than at the same time last year. Private sector houses rose 9.7%, driven by strength across all states and territories, to be 20.7% higher than at the same time last year.

Dwellings approved, states and territories
Seasonally adjusted
Private sector housesPrivate sector housesTotal dwelling units approvedTotal dwelling units approved
no.Monthly % changeno.Monthly % change
New South Wales2,3147.33,5294.6
Victoria3,5659.75,82212.4
Queensland1,8433.62,97019.3
South Australia77819.996628.3
Western Australia1,32515.11,85242.6
Tasmanianana29118.8
Northern Territorynananana
Australian Capital Territorynananana
Australia10,2389.715,82715.4

Dwelling approvals rose in Western Australia (42.6%), South Australia (28.3%), Queensland (19.3%), Tasmania (18.8%), Victoria (12.4%) and New South Wales (4.6%).

Approvals for private sector houses rose in South Australia (19.9%), Western Australia (15.1%), Victoria (9.7%), New South Wales (7.3%) and Queensland (3.6%).

Value of building approved, by building type
Seasonally adjusted
$mMonthly % change
New residential building4,853.0-1.0
Alterations and additions to residential building786.71.1
Total residential building5,639.6-0.7
Non-residential building2,963.0-36.7
Total building8,602.7-17.0

The value of total building approved fell 17.0% in September, in seasonally adjusted terms. The value of non-residential building fell 36.7%, after rising 40.0% in August.

The value of total residential building fell slightly in September, by 0.7%. This was driven by a fall in the value of new residential building (1.0%), while the value of residential alterations and additions rose 1.1%.

Notes

Data notes

This publication provides the number of dwelling units and value of buildings approved released in Building Approvals, Australia on 2 November 2020.

Small area data cubes and CSV files will be made available in an “Additional Information” release five business days after the main publication. These 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.

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

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in September

The World Health Organisation (WHO) commenced daily situation reports of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on 21 January 2020 and identified it as an international health emergency on 30 January. In March, regulations to encourage social distancing saw further impacts on the ability of businesses to trade as normal, resulting in rising unemployment and reduced household income. Travel restrictions have reduced the number of overseas arrivals to near-zero, resulting in less housing demand from overseas migrants.

Dwellings approvals rose sharply in September, which follows the relaxation of COVID-19 related restrictions in most states and territories. Federal and state-based incentives are also providing support for the detached housing and renovations sectors. Private house approvals rose to the highest level since April 2018, while the value of alterations and additions are at a four-year high (in seasonally adjusted terms). However, private investment in the non-residential sector remains weak, with value of private non-residential building approved in September remaining near four-year lows. 

Data collection activities continued to be largely unaffected in the September 2020 reference period. The ABS appreciates the support of federal, state and local government in continuing to provide the data to compile this publication.

Suspension of trend series

The trend series attempts to measure underlying behaviour in building approval activity. In the short term, this measurement will be significantly affected by changes to regular patterns in approval activity during this time, as potential home builders face on-going uncertainty. If the trend estimates in this publication were to be calculated without fully accounting for this irregular event, they would likely provide a misleading view of underlying approval activity.

It may be some time before the underlying trend in building approvals can be accurately estimated. The Building Approvals monthly trend series have therefore been suspended starting from May 2020, while the quarterly series have been suspended from the June 2020 quarter. The trend series will be reinstated when more certainty emerges in the underlying trend.

Update to seasonal adjustment methods

Building Approvals uses the concurrent seasonal adjustment method, meaning that seasonal factors are re-estimated each time a new data point becomes available. If not appropriately accounted for, unusual real-world events, such as COVID-19, can distort estimates calculated using this method. From May 2020, seasonal factors are being calculated using data up to and including April 2020, then projected from May 2020 onwards. This approach, known as the forward factor method, ensures that the seasonal factors are not distorted by COVID-19 impacts. 

Revisions this month

In this release, revisions are provided for the time period from July 2019 to August 2020. Further information about potential sources of revisions can be found in the feature article released with the January 2016 Building Approvals publication - "Revisions to Building Approval Statistics".

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

 

Dwellings 2019-202020-21
NSW           228        132
Vic.             16          10
Qld             61            3
SA             -1            -
WA           -27           -3
Tas.              5            9
NT              -             -
ACT              -             -
Total          282         151

 

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.

Data downloads - time series spreadsheets

These data downloads are currently available in file formats that may not be accessible for users on assistive devices, such as screen readers. Request an accessible version of these files.

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data downloads - data cubes

Private residential alterations and additions, July 2016 - September 2020 - States and Territories

Data files
Download xls [104 KB]

I-note

Small area datacubes

Data files

ABS.Stat datasets

Help for: ABS.Stat Datasets

http://stat.data.abs.gov.au/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=BA_GCCSA
http://stat.data.abs.gov.au/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ABS_BA_SA2_ASGS2016
http://stat.data.abs.gov.au/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ABS_BLDG_APPROVALS_LGA2019
http://stat.data.abs.gov.au/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ABS_BLDG_APPROVALS_LGA2020
 

Interactive map

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History of changes

09/11/2020 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 2 November 2020, this additional information release contains the small area Excel data cubes and CSV files for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years. 

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8731.0

All time series workbook zip file

All time series workbook zip file replaced on 02/11/2020. 

Article archive

Previous feature articles

Methodology

Building Approvals, Australia methodology, September 2020

Articles

Media releases