New home sales increase as confidence mounts

“This improvement in sales is a welcome reprieve from the steady decline that emerged in late 2018. It remains too soon to confirm that we have passed the bottom of the cycle, but this result does highlight that we are not likely to see further material falls in new home sales,” said HIA economist Angela Lillicrap.

“The easing of APRA’s lending restrictions and the RBA’s rate cuts have started to have a positive impact on the new home market.

“With the addition of the government’s First Home Loan Deposit scheme likely to see an additional increase in first home buyer activity, we expect that the improvement in new home sales will be sustained,” concluded Ms Lillicrap.

State by state

Across the country, new home sales increased for the month in all the states except for NSW, which declined by 12.1 per cent to be flat (-0.3 per cent) for the quarter, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Victoria increased by 11.0 per cent, Queensland by 1.7 per cent, South Australia by 18.0 per cent, and Western Australia increased by 13.6 per cent during September.