near the best number this will be for two-plus years.
Why? Because commencements – the number that decides what gets built – have just peaked.
New Australian Bureau of Statistics data covers June 2026, before the tax changes, rate rises and subsequent falling market hit.
📊 47,653 dwellings completed, up 15.8% on June 2025, the strongest June quarter since 2019.
🏘️ 180,500 completions for the financial year, 5% above the 2022 low of 172,522, still 19% below 2017’s peak of 223,090.
🏗️ Commencements: 52,166, up 14.4% – the strongest June quarter since 2021.
The year to June produced 204,440 #housingcommencements – the best run rate in four years: 28% above the 2024 trough, 13% below the 2016 peak.
A record 248,733 homes are under construction – a bearish number, not a bullish one. It’s not because more has started, but because we build slower due to poor #productivity.
Expect decent completion quarters short term: that pipeline must be built out. But completions follow starts, and starts have peaked.
🏠 Detached houses are carrying the load: 119,097 starts, up 19.9%.
🏢 Apartment starts barely moved: 84,487, up 6.2% YOY, but still 28% below the 2016 peak. The housing form the Accord and planning boffins alike have pushed the most.
Apartment completions are the deeper hole: 70,923, still 32% below the 2017 peak. Fewer starts from here means fewer completions from mid-2027.
Earlier this month I said #dwellingapprovals and commencements would fall into next year. This week’s release shows the peak.
🤔 What this data can’t show: what is no longer being sold. New home sales have fallen four months running, at a 4.60 per cent cash rate which is projected to rise.
Sales start projects. Unnecessary #taxreform and inflationary spending turn them off before the settings even commence.
Eight quarters into the Accord, 356,010 homes are built of the 480,000 required. 70,000 completions every quarter hereon need to hit the #housingtarget!
Most dwellings started today were a sale from a year or more earlier. With the market where it is heading, approvals won’t turn into commencements.
🤔 Timely approvals, land releases, enabling infrastructure, lower costs, the right tax settings: those would deliver the #housingsupply everyone wants.
You cannot tax a housing supply recovery into existence, and you don’t create more uncertainty in tough already times.