The Housing Industry Association's New Home Sales Report, a survey of Australia’s largest builders, showed that total new home sales declined in April after rising strongly in March.

The representative of Australia’s residential building industry said total new home sales were down 4.7% in April 2016. The fall was reflected in both detached house sales (-3.0%) and apartment sales (-10.8%).

The decline in detached house sales was widespread, with four of the five mainland states recording reduced sales in April. But Victoria bucked the trend – monthly sales of detached houses rose by a comfortable 14.3%.

New home sales were down in Western Australia (-19.8%), New South Wales (-8.1%), Queensland (-7.8%), and South Australia (-1.3%).

“The trend in new home sales reiterates that the peak for the cycle has passed, but the descent we’re now observing is very mild,” said HIA Economist, Diwa Hopkins.

“This signals the potential for very healthy home construction activity throughout 2016, much as we have been anticipating," she said.

“Our forecasts reflect an expectation that a modest decline in new home building in 2016 will be largely driven by a decline in multi-unit construction, following the successive record levels that occurred in 2015 and 2014,” she said.

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New home sales take a dip