Australian housing construction to remain in the doldrums for next year: CSR

Building products group CSR says Australia's housing construction industry will remain in the doldrums for the year ahead.

It’s estimated total housing starts in Australia will fall to about 140,000 in the year to March 2013, down from the 148,300 in 2012.

The company made the comments on Wednesday as it announced its net profit fell to $76.3 million in the year to March 31 from $503.4 million the previous year.

Trading revenue fell to $1.8 billion from $1.9 billion.

"Excluding the global financial crisis and the introduction of the GST, this represents the lowest level of housing activity in the past 15 years," CSR said in a statement.

CSR said it expected total private detached commencements to remain steady around 90,000, with multi-residential starts expected to fall by about 10% to 50,000.