New residential construction in Australia has plummeted across the nation, according to data from PRDnationwide’s most recent Quarterly Economic and Property Report.
The report from the Australian real estate agency noted that during the March 2013 quarter, the total value of residential construction work completed in Australia decreased by 10.1 percent to AUD9.65 million (S$11.3 million).
While the rest of the country remains in the engineering and construction doldrums, residential development in Western Australia is accelerating unabated, defying the national trend to increase by 10.8 percent.
Director of Research Aaron Maskrey noted that Western Australia had shown great resilience in the face of an Australia-wide reduction in residential construction.
He said: "In the area of residential construction, Western Australia has outperformed all the other states and territories in the March quarter. This can be attributed in part to on-going large-scale mining and energy projects in the state, which continued to attract new residents to Western Australian cities and townships at a rate almost twice the pace of the national average. All these new residents need somewhere to live and the construction industry has ably supported this growth."
At the other end of the scale, the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory suffered significant cutbacks in the number of new residential construction, slumping 19.3 percent and 17.8 percent respectively.
They were followed by Tasmania (down 15.1 percent), Victoria (down 14.5 percent), Queensland (down 14 percent), South Australia (down 12.4 percent) and New South Wales (down 9.6 percent).
Andrew Batt, International Group Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email andrew@propertyguru.com.sg
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