Fed: Housing starts surge by 33.7 pct in Sept qtr

AAP General News (Australia)
12-14-2001
Fed: Housing starts surge by 33.7 pct in Sept qtr

The building of new homes surged by more than a third in the three months to September.

Allowing for seasonal factors, the number of new dwellings started in the September
quarter jumped by 33.7 per cent to 40,053.

That was up from from 29,967 in the previous quarter.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says this is the highest number of new housing
starts since the pre-GST surge in the June quarter last year.

That surge, however, was followed by a massive slump in new housing that dragged economic
growth into the red for the first time in a decade.

Total housing starts were now 38.5 per cent higher than they were 12 months earlier,
the ABS said.

There was a massive 39.9 per cent leap in the number of new private sector homes in
the September quarter, putting this component 47.3 per cent higher than it was 12 month
earlier, it said.

AAP RTV jph/daw/rt

KEYWORD: HOUSING (CANBERRA)

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