WA the strongest state for residential building: HIA
Western Australia’s residential building industry is the strongest in the country, according to the Housing Industry Association’s inaugural Housing Scorecard report.
Mining investment and strong population growth have seen the state’s economy growing quickly, but until recently residential building had been stuck in the slow lane, it said.
“However, stronger conditions more recently have taken WA to the number one position for the first time in more than five years,” said chief economist Harley Dale. “The Australian Capital Territory is in second position with Victoria third.”
The report found that a resurgence under way in the New South Wales residential building industry was lifting the state up the table after spending the best part of a decade ‘’in the wilderness’’.
“Conditions in the residential building industry diverge widely, both across and within states and territories,’’ Dale said. ‘’The Housing Scorecard aggregates large amounts of housing information to present a concise account of the influences these divergences have on industry performance."
The report benchmarks the contemporary performance of 13 key indicators of activity in residential building against long-term averages in each state and territory. This analysis is aggregated in a scoring system to generate a league table ranking the relative strengths/weaknesses of residential building conditions in each jurisdiction.’’
The report found that, in NSW, new home building has been the driver of its resurgence, but weaker conditions in the renovations segment have held back the state’s charge up the table. ‘’Overall, residential building conditions in NSW still rank only fifth nationally, but there is clearly some positive momentum there,” Dale said.
“At the other end of the table, Tasmania is languishing in last place, continuing the run of four consecutive quarters on the bottom.
“It was not so long ago, back during the financial crisis, that Tasmania was the top ranking state for residential building. Unfortunately, the state’s broader economy has undergone a marked deterioration since then and the weaker demand conditions delivered a big hit to the state’s residential building industry.”
