With approvals easing and completions well behind national goals, fresh data is pointing to a widening housing supply gap.
Australia’s latest building approvals and new modelling on housing completions show a market still generating solid detached‑house activity but falling far short of what is needed to deliver the Albanese government’s 1.2 million‑home target under the National Housing Accord.
April’s seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed total dwelling approvals slipping 3.4 per cent to 16,710, following a steep 10.5 per cent drop in March.
Within that total, private sector houses edged 1 per cent lower to 10,088, while private sector dwellings excluding houses – mostly apartments and town houses – fell 3.6 per cent to 6,403.
Yet the composition looks different in original terms, with higher‑density product lifting off a relatively soft base.
Apartment approvals rose 9 per cent in April to 4,108 dwellings, driven largely by NSW and sit around 4.5 per cent above their average for the previous 12 months.
New semidetached approvals weakened by 5.8 per cent to 2,901, but that result is broadly in line with the recent trend, sitting slightly above the 12‑month average of 2,893.
ABS head of construction statistics, Daniel Rossi, said that, despite the monthly decline, stand‑alone house approvals were still running at historically strong levels.
“This is the third consecutive month with over 10,000 private sector houses approved. The last time this occurred was during the final three months of 2021,” Rossi said.
For total dwellings, approvals fell in NSW (down 9.5 per cent), Western Australia (down 7.4 per cent), and Victoria (down 3.9 per cent), while Tasmania jumped 42.2 per cent, South Australia rose 4.3 per cent, and Queensland lifted 0.3 per cent.
A similar mixed pattern emerged for private sector houses, with approvals falling in NSW (down 13.8 per cent) and Western Australia (down 1.2 per cent) but rising in South Australia (up 11.4 per cent), Victoria (up 2.2 per cent), and Queensland (up 0.9 per cent).
Completions far short of Accord ambitions
Set against those approvals, new research from HomeLoanRates.com.au and Primara Research suggests that the number of homes actually being completed is nowhere near the pace required to hit the federal government’s headline supply target.
Since the National Housing Accord was announced, only 268,445 dwellings have been built in the first 18 months of the five‑year window.
Primara’s analysis shows Australia averaging 44,741 completions per quarter over that period.
To reach 1.2 million homes by mid‑2029, 931,555 dwellings would need to be delivered over the remaining three and a half years, implying 66,540 completions per quarter.
Director of Primara Research, Peter Drennan, said the gap between current activity and the federal government’s housing targets required a major step change.
“To meet the target, completions need to lift by 49 per cent from today’s average. That’s an additional 7,266 homes per month above what is currently being built. It’s not impossible, but nothing in the current trajectory suggests it’s happening,” he said.
NSW carries half the national shortfall
Primara’s state breakdown showed that some jurisdictions are broadly keeping pace with their share of the target, while others are dragging the national numbers down.
Victoria, which has about 26 per cent of the population, is contributing roughly 32 per cent of completions and sits just 8 per cent behind its population‑weighted goal, with the ACT on track to meet its targets.
NSW, however, was identified as the biggest single source of underdelivery.
With around 31 per cent of Australia’s population, it accounts for just 26 per cent of completions and is estimated to be 39 per cent behind its target.
That equates to about 7,192 of the 14,914 additional homes that need to be built each month across the country to meet the Accord’s 1.2 million‑dwelling objective.
Queensland (around 31 per cent behind), Tasmania (50 per cent behind), and the Northern Territory (81 per cent behind) were also flagged as significantly behind the required pace.
Drennan said the contrasting performance of the states pointed to both the scale of the challenge and the potential solutions.
“Victoria and the ACT show it can be done at a state level. But NSW alone accounts for an estimated half of the national monthly shortfall. Until NSW and the growth states close that gap, the national target remains out of reach,” Drennan outlined.
[Related: Higher density approvals slump as housing target gap widens]
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