By Paul Hemsley
The quarterly ‘State of the States’ economic performance report from Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s securities arm, CommSec, has found that New South Wales and Queensland are falling behind on urban development.
Population growth in NSW is the third lowest among the states and territories, resulting in the lack of development and expansion making the state the second lowest in construction.
Aside from the Australian Capital Territory, all other states and territories have been indicated to be falling behind on dwelling starts, which are driven by population growth and housing finance
The states’ lowest position in dwelling raises the obvious question of whether local councils could face a slowdown in growth from rates income due to subdued of property construction and development in their local government areas.
According to the report, the housing construction outlook “remains weak” but there are signs of improvement ahead.
The report said dwelling starts are now above decade averages in three of the states and territories, which is up from a prior report.
However NSW is also down 8.4 per cent on housing finance from 14.2 per cent in the previous report.
The CommSec report gave some reassurance that if state government grants revive home building, then there will be good results across the economy.
Factoring population growth into the lack of construction throughout NSW, the report also states that the annual population growth stands at 1.02 per cent, which is 9.5 per cent above the decade average.
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