Apartment construction matching house construction

“Over the decade ending December 2017, the annual average building approval volume was 186,577 additional dwellings,” Mr Pressley said.

“When we dig deeper into the numbers, it’s obvious that the broader increase in national supply volumes is weighted heavily towards higher density. Nationally, the annual average approval volume for new apartments over the last decade was 78,203. Over the last 3 years, this had increased to 111,533 new apartments per year.

“In other words, Australia is not only building a lot more new dwellings, we are also building one new apartment for every house.”

The majority of this apartment stock, according to Mr Pressley, is located in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with each of these major markets having more than one apartment being built for every house.

“Sydney is a very mature apartment market – more than 60 per cent of building approvals each year for more than 15 years are apartments,” Mr Pressley said.

“In Melbourne, the apartment ratio has been slightly above 50 per cent since 2012. In Brisbane, it was above 50 per cent from 2013 to 2016 inclusive but slipped back to 44 per cent in 2017."

However, Canberra surpassed all other capital cities with three in four dwellings approved in the last three years being apartments, while the one is detached housing.

“At the other end of the scale, apartments represent a much smaller percentage of dwellings in Adelaide (37 per cent), Perth (30 per cent), [and] Hobart (25 per cent)," Mr Pressley said.