Staying in love with their current dwellings, Australian’s expenditure on residential renovations rose 2.6% for the year-ended March 2017, compared with the prior year. The value of Alterations & Additions as measured in the Construction Work Done series rose to an annualized record of AUD8.379 billion.
As the chart below shows, the value of alterations and additions, a major user of wood products and especially panel products for kitchen and other joinery upgrades, has been on a long run of increases, at least by value.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
On a quarterly basis, the value of renovation activity rose 0.7% in the March quarter compared with the March quarter of 2016. This moderately slower growth over the quarter comes as some building activity starts to cool, as housing’s super-heated boom cools just a little.
Although it is uncertain, there is perhaps the emergence of some price competition in a market that has been for much of the last five years.
