Recently released data from the Housing Industry Association (HIA) shows that new home sales improved for a second consecutive month in November 2012, driven by an upswing in sales of detached houses.
The HIA New Home Sales report revealed that new home sales rose by 4.7 per in November 2012 – a result that was underpinned by a 7.7 per cent increase in sales of detached houses, following a run of five consecutive monthly declines.
Multi-unit sales declined by 6.9 per cent after a spike in October.
The number of seasonally adjusted new detached house sales increased by 15.8 per cent in New South Wales, 15.6 per cent in Victoria and 6.7 per cent in South Australia.
Detached house sales fell by 0.1 per cent in Queensland and 6.8 per cent in Western Australia.
HIA economist Geordan Murray said the results was promising when considered against the back drop of late 2012, which saw lower borrowing rates and several states encourage new home building through amendments to first home buyer assistance.
"The positive result in November was driven by the detached house segment of the market which experienced a trend decline in sales throughout most of 2012. This result should provide some welcome respite," said Mr Murray.
Mr Murray noted that while the November increase is encouraging, new home sales remain at quite low levels:
"If we consider the three months to November, the volume of sales is 15.7 per cent lower than in the same period in 2011. This overall profile shows that we have a long way to go before we could consider sales volumes to be at satisfactory levels," he said.
"The importance of a broad based rejuvenation of new home building to maintaining the health of the overall Australian economy has been widely acknowledged, but at this stage, new home sales sits among a host of indicators that are yet to provide conclusive evidence that we are on track to achieve this," concluded Mr Murray.
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