Apartment approvals rise, but the new-home signal is mixed

In seasonally adjusted terms, total dwelling approvals rose 5.1 per cent in September to 17,948. The increase was not evenly spread across housing types. Private sector dwellings excluding houses, a category that includes many apartments and townhouses, rose 16.6 per cent to 6,579. Private sector house approvals fell 5.3 per cent to 10,432 after a rise in August. That matters because the first-home buyer market is not one single market: some buyers are targeting detached homes on the urban fringe, while others are comparing established units, new apartments or townhouses closer to jobs and transport.

The practical takeaway is not that more approved homes will immediately make buying easier. An approval is a step in the pipeline, not a completed dwelling. Projects can still face financing, labour, cost, infrastructure and settlement delays. For buyers, that means supply headlines should be read alongside local listings, inspection activity, builder timelines and the type of dwelling actually being delivered in the suburbs they can afford.

The state picture also remains uneven. In trend terms, approvals rose in the ACT, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, while Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory recorded falls. A national increase can therefore hide very different local conditions, especially for buyers whose deposit and borrowing range limits them to a small set of suburbs.

For first-home buyers considering a new build or off-the-plan apartment, the latest figures underline the need to test several scenarios before committing. Useful questions include:

• whether the property type fits the buyer’s long-term needs, not just the current price point;
• how construction or settlement timing could affect rent, savings and loan documentation;
• whether body corporate costs, strata rules or building defects risk have been considered for apartments;
• how a different purchase price, deposit or interest rate would change repayment estimates.

The figures also reinforce why borrowing capacity needs to be reviewed carefully as plans change. A buyer who starts by looking at a house-and-land package may end up comparing townhouses or units, and each option can bring different costs, settlement timing and lender assessment issues. More approvals are welcome, but the benefit for first-home buyers depends on whether those approvals become well-located, completed homes at prices that match real household budgets.