New home sales up in January

New home sales in Western Australia have started strongly in 2008, rising by 47.1 per cent in January from the previous month their highest level since March 2006, according to the Housing Industry Association.

HIA’s new home sales figures released for January 2008 show rise of 11.3 per cent across Australia’s five mainland states.

HIA executive director WA John Dastlik said the state had yet to feel the impact of banks lifting rates in January plus two official hikes to interest rates in February and March.

“In this hotter interest rate climate we are unlikely to see further significant gains.

Neverthless, sales volumes are looking better than they were a year ago.

Over the three months to January this year sales were 13 per cent higher than over the three months to January 2007.” HIA chief economist Harley Dale said the national result was driven by strong sales in WA and Queensland (up 26.2 per cent).

But new home sales in the big states of New South Wales and Victoria dropped, with falls of 11.9 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively.

“A number of large volume builders in Queensland and Western Australia enjoyed a healthy first month for sales in 2008, aided in WA’s case by a large amount of promotional activity,” Mr Dale said.

“However, the sustainability of stronger sales activity in these states is questionable.

“Much of the sales activity will reflect approvals that went through around or even before the rate rise of last November.