September 2014 welcomed the highest number of home starts since the agency began recording in 1980s, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
 
Detached dwelling starts jumped by 0.8% in the quarter, while multi-unit homes rebounded by 30.2%
 
The total number of housing starts soared by 12.5% in the same quarter and reached a 52,380 record.
 
The four largest states – NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia – achieved the strongest record for multi-unit dwelling.  But for analysts at the Housing Industry Association (HIA), the results were not exactly surprising.
 
“Furthermore, another incremental increase in detached dwelling starts sees this part of the market record the strongest quarterly result since 2010. This result confirms that residential building activity was tracking along at a very strong level during 2014,” said HIA senior economist Shane Garrett.
 
“However, part of the particularly strong September quarter result can be attributed to a catch up after the rather disappointing result in the June quarter when the number of starts fell well short of expectations,” he added.

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