While Victoria saw monthly increases in residential building approvals in June, this remains insufficient to offset the falling quarterly and yearly rates. The question remains if recent cuts to interest rates by the RBA and the APRA’s relaxation of mortgage lending rules will stabilise building approvals in the latter half of 2019.

While building approvals do not show current building activity, they are a good indicator to understand the level of building work to come and general confidence in the residential construction market.

Key highlights

• Both houses and multi-units saw monthly increases in building approvals for June 2019, with an increase of 6.2 per cent and 21.4 per cent compared to the previous month respectively. This resulted in an overall monthly increase of 11.8 per cent in total residential building approvals.
• Monthly increases in residential building approvals remain insufficient to offset quarterly declines, with houses and multi-units seeing quarterly declines of 2.9 per cent and 16.7 per cent respectively for the June quarter.
• The number of building approvals in Victoria over the 12 months to June 2019 totalled 59,902 – 21.1 per cent less compared to the same time last year (75,962). Of this, houses and multi-unit approvals fell by 7.4 per cent and 36.3 per cent respectively in the same period.