Melbourne's apartment glut

Thursday’s Australian Financial Review contained an interesting tid-bit on the surge of apartment building taking place, particularly in Melbourne (from Smaller view drives building surge, AFR, 16 June 2011):

A surge of apartment building is taking place while houses are on the decline, according to dwelling commencements figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)…

Victoria was the most active state with 5,168 private sector apartments started in the March quarter, the second highest on record. The private sector has started building 33,453 apartments nation-wide since the upturn began in June 2008.

“These numbers are staggering”, said Andrew Wilson, economist with Fairfax-owned Australian Property Monitors (APM). “There was a lot of chatter that approvals weren’t converting into starts because of low finance levels and lack of pre-sales. But the connection between the level of approvals and commencements is remaining consistent”.

[Click to read more]

Read more at The Unconventional Economist