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About Kooky and Shaka →Queensland's approvals for apartments, townhouses and other multi-unit homes rose 49.6 per cent in the 2025-26 financial year, the largest increase of any state, according to a Housing Industry Association analysis published on 30 July 2026. The analysis draws on the Australian Bureau of Statistics building approvals for June, released the same day, which close out the year.
Detached house approvals in Queensland rose 8.6 per cent over the same twelve months, the association reports.
How Queensland compares
The association sets out the year's change for each of the five largest states, for houses and for multi-unit homes separately.
| State | Detached houses | Multi-unit homes |
|---|---|---|
| Queensland | +8.6% | +49.6% |
| New South Wales | +10.5% | +2.4% |
| Victoria | +3.2% | -9.0% |
| Western Australia | +11.0% | +11.2% |
| South Australia | -1.5% | +19.8% |
Housing Industry Association, 30 July 2026, from ABS Building Approvals for June 2026.
Queensland's house result sits in the middle of the group. Its multi-unit result stands well apart: the next strongest state, South Australia, is almost 30 percentage points behind it.
The association reports the smaller jurisdictions in original terms, where the counts are low enough for a few projects to move the percentage a long way. Multi-unit approvals more than doubled in Tasmania, up 111.1 per cent, and rose 51.0 per cent in the Australian Capital Territory and 39.4 per cent in the Northern Territory. Among the five large states, where the comparison is steadier, none comes close to Queensland.
Nationally, the association counts 121,140 detached house approvals in 2025-26, up 7.0 per cent, and 83,510 multi-unit approvals, up 10.5 per cent. The ABS, in original terms, puts total dwellings approved across Australia for the year at 205,249, up 9.2 per cent on the 187,944 approved in 2024-25. The bureau describes that as the highest financial-year total since 2020-21.
Related readQueensland home approvals sit 23 per cent above last April's levelJune finished the year strongly
The month itself was a firm one for Queensland. The ABS reports 4,841 dwellings approved in the state in June in seasonally adjusted terms, a rise of 33.4 per cent on May. Of those, 2,353 were private sector houses, up 2.9 per cent, which the bureau says was the largest rise in house approvals of any state.
That monthly total follows 3,946 first published for April and 3,602 for May, so June was the highest of the three months of the quarter by a wide margin. The gap between June's total and its private house count, 2,488 dwellings, is where the strength lies: it was 1,336 on the same subtraction in May.
Queensland's month was the second largest in the country, a short distance behind New South Wales.
Source: ABS, Building Approvals, Australia, June 2026, released 30 July 2026. Total dwelling units, seasonally adjusted. The territories are not published on this basis.
The direction of travel differed sharply between the states. New South Wales rose 13.2 per cent in the month and Western Australia 10.7 per cent, while Victoria fell 13.9 per cent, South Australia 11.5 per cent and Tasmania 22.5 per cent. Queensland's rise was the largest of the six.
Across Australia, 18,328 dwellings were approved in June, up 7.2 per cent on May and 8.9 per cent on June 2025, the ABS says. Queensland's 4,841 is 26.4 per cent of that. Private dwellings excluding houses rose 17.8 per cent nationally to 7,138, and the bureau notes that apartment approvals in original terms rose 69.9 per cent to 4,888.
Three sets of numbers, one month
Readers comparing the releases will find figures that do not match at first sight. They describe the same approvals counted in different ways.
Related readQueensland dwelling approvals fall 13.9 per cent in JulyThe ABS headline for houses, 10,631 in June, covers private sector houses only. The Housing Industry Association's June figures, 10,870 detached houses and 7,460 multi-units, include every sector, and add up to 18,330, the bureau's national total within rounding. The association's multi-unit category takes in everything that is not a detached house: semi-detached homes, terraces, townhouses and apartments.
The second difference is between seasonally adjusted and trend estimates. Seasonally adjusted figures remove the regular calendar pattern and keep the month's real jump. Trend estimates smooth the series further, so that one large apartment approval does not swing the line.
On the smoothed series the direction is the same. The Queensland Government Statistician's Office, in its brief on the June release, puts the state's trend estimate at 4,314 dwellings, 4.1 per cent higher than the previous month and 24.7 per cent higher than in June 2025. The national trend was 18,449, up 2.0 per cent in the month and 14.1 per cent over the year. Queensland accounted for 23.4 per cent of national approvals on that measure.
Trend estimates are revised as each new month arrives, and a strong month lifts the months before it. The office's brief on the May figures, drawn from the ABS release of 1 July, had shown the Queensland trend falling 1.9 per cent in May and sitting 13.6 per cent above a year earlier, with a 21.6 per cent share of the national total. One more month of data has turned a dip into a rise.
Related readQueensland has built 24 per cent of its Housing Accord share so farWhat sits behind the unit figure
A rise of nearly half in one year is large. A percentage of that size also depends on its starting point: the lower the count in 2024-25, the bigger the same number of extra approvals looks. The association's summary gives the change, not the underlying Queensland totals.
The 2025-26 figures say that more attached-housing projects reached the building approval stage than the year before. They do not say that the projects are under construction. A building approval for a tower is typically sought close to the point of starting on site, so it is a better signal of intent than a planning approval, but presales, finance and a builder's contract still have to hold.
Multi-unit approvals are also concentrated. A handful of large projects in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast can account for a large share of a year's increase. The state-level release does not break the figure down by region or by project.
The national picture shows how unusual Queensland's year was. On the bureau's trend series, private dwellings excluding houses across Australia were 14.4 per cent higher in June than a year earlier. In seasonally adjusted terms the same category was 1.5 per cent lower than in June 2025, even after the month's 17.8 per cent rise. A category that can be up or down over the year depending on the measure is one where single months should be read with care.
Houses: slower, steadier
The 8.6 per cent rise in Queensland house approvals is the less dramatic number and probably the more durable one. The Statistician's Office reports 2,366 private houses approved in June in trend terms, up 0.4 per cent on the month, a series that has edged up through the year without large swings. Queensland accounted for 22.3 per cent of the nation's private house approvals on that measure.
Related readFewer units approved in May as Queensland houses keep their paceNationally, the ABS says private house approvals have now exceeded 10,000 for six months in a row, and that the June figure was 15.8 per cent higher than in June 2025. The bureau also reports the average approval value of a new house at $517,430 in 2025-26, up 5.0 per cent from $492,931 the year before. That is the value of the building work declared at approval, not a sale price, and it does not include land.
The value of residential building approved in Queensland was $2,887.5 million in June in trend terms, up 0.3 per cent, against $11,224.0 million nationally, up 2.2 per cent, the Statistician's Office reports. Non-residential approvals in the state rose 6.1 per cent to $1,355.3 million on the same basis, compared with a 1.0 per cent rise nationally to $7,770.3 million. Commercial and industrial projects draw on the same trades as housing.
What the industry body expects next
The Housing Industry Association's reading of the year is cautious. Its analysis says there are long lags between changes in market conditions and building approvals, so the June figures reflect decisions taken months earlier. It lists rising interest rates, geopolitical tensions and tax increases among the changes it does not expect to show up in the approvals data in any material way until late 2026, and says its leading indicators of confidence have weakened since the Budget, with investors expected to pull back.
The association also argues that the lift in detached house approvals reflects underlying demand for housing that still exceeds supply. It describes housing affordability as at its worst in more than 30 years, and says policy should aim to reduce the cost of building.
Those are the association's views and its forecast is not a certainty. What the figures establish is narrower. Queensland ended the financial year with approvals rising on every measure, and with attached housing doing most of the lifting. Approvals are permissions. The quarterly figures on commencements and completions will show how many of them become homes, and the bureau's Building Activity release for the June quarter is listed for 7 October 2026.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
