Housing approvals have remained fairly stable across Australia in the past three months, despite a slight dip in August.

New monthly home building approvals data show a dip in apartment approvals in August of 2.9%, but HIA Senior Economist Tom Devitt says approval levels are pretty much on a par with the same time last year.

He says year-on-year approvals are only down 0.9% and remain above the 2023 trough. “Declining interest rates, strong population growth, tight labour markets and recovering household incomes helped improve confidence in an increasing number of markets over the past 18 months,” Devitt says.

The data shows Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia are leading the states when it comes to approvals, with higher land costs holding back some of the other states. Devitt says higher-density housing needs to do much more “heavy lifting” if Australia is to meet its housing targets and improve affordability. He says policy makers need to reduce the costs of construction that are inflated with “needless and destructive” taxes, regulations, restrictions and costs.