featured image for FWPA’s latest industry statistics released

FWPA’s latest industry statistics released

30 June 2025

Below are the most recent news updates and industry info from FWPA’s Statistics and Economics Program.

Housing approvals for March 2025

Housing Approvals for March 2025 are still volatile, but the overall trend is positive.

The March 2025 Building Approvals continued to show volatility in the monthly data with detached house approvals of 8,944 for March down -4.2% on the previous month. Similarly, monthly approvals for total dwellings in March were 15,220 down -8.8% on the previous month.

However, reflecting the fact that progress is being made on the less volatile annual data, detached house approvals year-end March 2025 were 111,369 up 9.6% on the year-end March 2024. Total approvals for year-end March 2025 were 179,154 which was a gain of 10.1% on the previous period.

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The trend of housing finance: insight from the latest lending indicators data

The quarterly lending indicators, published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), reflect new loan commitments made by lenders for both housing and business finance. Within the housing finance category, lending is further broken down into three key borrower groups: owner-occupiers, first-home buyers, and investors. 

According to the ABS’s latest release of lending indicators for the March quarter 2025 (Q1 2025), year-on-year comparisons (aggregated across four quarters) show a general upward trend in housing finance commitments.

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Source: FWPA

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