Australia's residential multi-unit developments are becoming more popular (ABS) report.
Australia’s residential multi-unit developments are becoming more popular (ABS) report.
Three decades ago, townhouses, units, flats, apartments, semi-detached homes and duplexes equated to less than one-fifth of all residential building approvals.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures dating back as far as July 1983 show that multi-unit developments made up only 17.4 per cent and since then their importance has grown dramatically.
The November 2012 figures released by the (ABS) today show that proportion had risen to 42.5 per cent, nearly two and half times that of the mid-1980s. Economists have traditionally seen free-standing homes as the benchmark for gauging the strength of the housing sector and that view could be justified in two ways.
Free-standing homes made up the majority of the share and the multi-dwelling category is much more volatile from month to month but one way that volatility can be measured is by comparing the seasonally adjusted series which economists look at most closely at figures released by the (ABS) taking into account the trend measure.
For houses, the monthly change in approvals over the past year has been 3.6% away from the change in the trend measure on average so the November figures released by the bureau today are not unusual, with the seasonally adjusted number of house-building approvals up by 0.3% per cent and the trend measure not far away with a monthly decline of 0.1% but the multi-unit category posted an adjusted rise of 6.9% and a trend fall of 0.8% and has an average of 18.4% over the past 12 months.
The multi-unit category is far more volatile than the single houses category because the more volatile component is growing faster, that’s making the total more volatile as well. Long term the free-standing homes sector looks a stable safe bet but at the same time there are many good buys out there in both sectors.
