Media Release | Dwelling Completions Hit Near Seven-Year High

7 Oct

min read

Content & Social Manager

Lilly Mackay

Media Release | Dwelling Completions Hit Near Seven-Year High

07 Oct 2026

min read

Dwelling Completions Reach Highest Level in Nearly Seven Years: ABS June Quarter 2026

Following today's release of Building Activity data by the ABS,the following statement can be attributed to Oliver Hume PropertyGroup chief economist, Matt Bell.

While most of the commentary you’ll see around Building activity figures out this morning from the ABS will be about by how far we are behind the National Housing Accord target cumulatively since mid-2024, don’t let it overshadow what was clearly a much-improved quarter for both dwelling completions and starts.

National dwelling completions in the June 2026 quarter hit 47,168, the highest level in nearly seven years. While house completions rose for the quarter, it is Unit completions doing most of the work. Nearly 20,000 new units were completed in the quarter, the highest level since March 2020. This was driven by a massive jump in Unit completions in NSW over the last 12 months.

Dwelling completions on an annual basis are now trending up strongly in the big three states of NSW, VIC and QLD. In NSW and VIC, it’s stronger Unit building off setting easing house construction, and in QLD it’s more balanced, with both house and unit completions rising.

The outlook is even better, with annual dwelling commencements pushing above 200,000 for the first time since June 2022, with both Houses and Units on very strong uptrends since the bottom in June 2024.

Government Focus on Housing Delivery and the National Housing Accord

The positive move incompletions and commencements demonstrates that increased Federal and State government focus on housing delivery is helping move housing supply in the right direction. Reduction in regulatory red tape and holding local governments to account, particularly in the big states of NSW and VIC, is contributing to delivering increased levels of new housing. We are still only two years into a5-year target period for the National Housing Accord. We should be optimistic.