Building Activity, Australia

The total number of dwelling units commenced in Australia fell 16.3% to 56,617 dwellings in the September quarter, in seasonally adjusted terms. Private sector house commencements fell 16.3% to 35,521 dwellings, following a rise of 18.9% in the June quarter. Private sector other residential commencements fell 16.3% to 20,041 dwellings, following a rise of 54.1% in the June quarter.

Reference year for Chain Volume Measures is 2019-2020

The value of total building work done fell 1.6% to $30.6b in the September quarter, in seasonally adjusted terms. New residential building work done fell 2.6% to $15.8b. This was driven by new other residential building, which fell 8.8% to $5.5b, while new houses rose 1.2% to $10.3b. Non-residential building work done fell 2.3% to $11.8b, following a rise of 3.4% in the June quarter.

Building Activity by state - value of building work and number of dwellings commenced, completed, under construction and in the pipeline.

This publication updates the preliminary estimates released in Construction Work Done, Australia on 24 November 2021. The data in this publication are based on a response rate of approximately 85% of the value of building work done during the quarter. This is lower than the average response rate due to difficulties collecting data as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data are subject to revision when returns from the following quarter are processed. Final data for the September 2021 quarter will be released in the next release of this publication, Building Activity, Australia on 13 April 2022.

Several time series spreadsheets contain 'np' (not available for publication) annotations from the September quarter 2012 onwards. This is due to confidential data being contained in these series.

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Compared to the estimate published in Building Activity, Australia June 2021 released on 10 November 2021:

• the total value of work done in Australia during the June 2021 quarter has been revised upwards by $681.0m or 2.1% (original, current price). 
• the total value of work commenced in Australia during the June 2021 quarter has been revised upwards $2,943.6m or 7.3% (original, current price). There was an upward revision to total non-residential commencements of $1,545.8m (10.5%), and an upward revision to total residential commencements of $1,397.9m (5.4%).
• the number of dwelling unit commencements in the June 2021 quarter has been revised upwards by 2,603 dwellings or 4.0% (original).

The trend series attempts to measure underlying behaviour in construction activity. This measurement will be significantly affected by changes to regular patterns in activity during this time, as the construction industry faces on-going uncertainty. If the trend estimates in this publication were to be calculated without fully accounting for this irregular event, they would likely provide a misleading view of underlying building activity.

It may be some time before the underlying trend in building activity can be accurately estimated. The trend series have therefore been suspended starting from June 2020. The trend series will be reinstated when more certainty emerges in the underlying trend. 

The Extraordinary Annual Seasonal Review undertaken this quarter has individually assessed each series to determine how each observation should be treated for estimation of the seasonal factors used to seasonally adjust the current end of the series. This process has ensured disruption to series caused by COVID-19 does not unduly affect estimates of the seasonal factors.

For series which have used the forward factors method (see list below), revisions to the seasonally adjusted series are likely to be larger than the revisions historically observed each quarter when concurrent adjustment was used. Series which have used forward factors have used static seasonal factor estimates since COVID-19 impacts were observed, and the review has updated these seasonal factor estimates. When concurrent adjustment is used, revisions to the seasonally adjusted estimates will typically be smaller because seasonal factor estimates are updated quarterly on the basis of the addition of just one extra data point.

The following Building Activity series previously used the forward factor method:

• Private and total sector non-residential building work done in Victoria (since September 2020 quarter) and Queensland (since March 2021 quarter).
• New houses and alterations and additions to residential commencement series in all states and territories (since December 2020 quarter)
• New houses and alterations and additions to residential work done series in all states and territories (since March 2021 quarter).

A new base year, 2019-20, has been introduced in the chain volume estimates resulting in revisions to growth rates in subsequent periods. In addition, the chain volume estimates have been re-referenced to 2019-20, preserving additivity in the quarters after the reference year. Re-referencing affects the levels of, but not the movements in, chain volume estimates. For further information, see the methodology.

Building a New Home: Construction Cost Changes, June quarter 2020

Small Area Dwelling Completions, June quarter 2020

Telling storeys - Apartment building heights, December quarter 2019

Characteristics of new residential dwellings - A 15 year summary, December quarter 2019

Abandonment rates for new dwellings, June quarter 2019

Average dwelling commencement times, June quarter 2019

Average dwelling completion times, June quarter 2019

Revisions to building activity statistics, December quarter 2015

Average floor area of new residential dwellings, June quarter 2013

A twenty year history of the cost of building a new house, December quarter 2008

Additional Building and Construction feature articles can be found in Feature Articles by Catalogue Number

This release previously used catalogue number 8752.0.

21/1/2022 - Time series spreadsheets 28, 34, 35 and 38 have been updated to correct missing historical data in some series.