THE Property Council ACT’s Catherine Carter says market indicators point to continued record levels of housing construction nationally into the 2016 financial year – and a brighter economic outlook for Canberra.

The latest Australian Residential Development Outlook, produced by the Property Council of Australia and CoreLogic RP Data, examines key indicators across macro, fiscal, housing investment and housing activity in the residential development market.

“The data suggests that we will continue the run of unprecedented new housing supply – which is good news across Australia,“ Catherine says.

“However, almost 50 per cent of all new housing commencements have been in Sydney and Melbourne. We need to boost the supply of new dwellings in Canberra to ease pricing pressure and improve affordability.

National building approvals hit their highest annualised levels in April 2015, recording 210,484 dwelling approvals, with this period of high approvals likely to continue throughout the 2016 financial year.

National residential dwelling commencements have exceeded expectations to reach 197,000 home starts, and activity is expected to remain strong in 2016.

“The impact of Canberra job losses has hurt residential demand – but with public service cuts now largely over, we expect that activity should pick up, particularly on the back of record-low interest rates and improving foreign investment in new dwellings”

“The lower number of transactions and moderate construction activity over the last financial year does mean that property tax revenues are not expected to reach the budget target. It’s clear we need to rethink the ACT’s over-reliance on property taxes,” Ms Carter concluded