Residential land sales have increased in Australia, indicating that new property starts could be on the path to recovery and will improve in early 2013, according to the Housing Industry Association (HIA).
The Australian property organisation's HIA-RP Data Residential Land Report found that the June 2012 quarter saw residential land sales grow by an impressive 23.3 per cent - bringing them up by 29.7 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
HIA chief economist Harvey Dale hailed the figures as representative of an improvement in the residential market.
"Land sales did rise in all six state capitals and in a majority of regional areas and that is an encouraging result," he declared.
However, the HIA expert pointed out that this came from an extremely low base and noted that "the onus is on all levels of government to rectify the policy failures" that led to the initial slump.
The organisation recently revealed that new home sales have not grown as rapidly as was anticipated.
Posted by Steve Douglas