Approvals at 19-month low
Building were expected to rebound after last month's -15 per cent drop, but instead fell another -7 per cent to just 14,564 in January, seasonally adjusted, for the lowest result in 19 months.
Detached house approvals are declining in Melbourne, but a surge of permits in Perth over the past two years has helped to keep the overall figures reasonably solid.
Sydney saw just 649 houses approved in January, partly due to seasonality, of course.
Unit approvals continued their gentle uptrend in Brisbane, but have fallen back in Sydney and Melbourne of late.
Adding it all together it was a pretty miserable set of numbers for December and January, and this was obviously all before interest rates were increased in February.
Annual dwelling approvals fell back to 193,500.
Over the past 19 months, approvals have been running at around 15,900 per cent month, which is obviously a long way short of what the government would like to see (at more like 20,000 per month).
In other news, public expenditure again looks sets to add to the December quarter GDP growth (+0.3ppts contribution), so the National Accounts seem likely to show a reasonably solid result when they are released this week.
The Reserve Bank of Australia is naturally alert to inflation risks arising from oil and gas supply disruption, so the March meeting result and press conference will be an interesting one to watch.
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