Australian land sales have increased in the last quarter, according to the Housing Industry Association's (HIA) joint report with RP Data.
"The March quarter saw a 6.8 per cent increase in land sales and it’s encouraging that the improvement was broadly-based across the states," said HIA senior economist Andrew Harvey on July 12.
"With the exception of Adelaide, all the capital cities saw increases in the number of residential lots sold," he added.
While March figures from the HIA-RP Data Residential Land Report reflect a positive trend in the right direction, there is some concern that levels should be much higher than they are.
RP Data's research director Tim Lawless explained the disconnection between increasing numbers and industry expectations.
"We have seen transactions for vacant land rise over two successive quarters now, however this lift comes from a historically low base.
"To put the number of land sales over the March quarter into perspective, transactions are about half of what we saw over the September quarter of 2009," he said.
Mr Lawless suggested that perhaps budget-conscious Australians were being drawn to the lower prices of established housing or unit developments in the market.
