Tasmanian housing approvals tumbled in August, but the building industry expects some strong months ahead.
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Councils approved 237 dwellings during the month in seasonally adjusted terms, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
That was a 26.2 per cent decrease compared with July and easily the worst in the nation, with national approvals falling by 1.6 per cent.
However, July's total of 321 approvals was unusually high.
The August total was in line with May (239), at the peak of Tasmania's economic crash caused by coronavirus and related restrictions.
Monthly approvals ranged between 207 and 306 in 2019.
The federal government was criticised for not putting more money into social housing in Tuesday night's budget (beyond a previously announced $1 billion of bonds to encourage institutional investors to invest in new affordable housing).
However, Master Builders Australia said the budget would lift confidence in the building and construction sector and save the jobs of more than one million of its workers.
"Productivity enhancing infrastructure, including local community infrastructure, wages subsidies and massive tax incentives for builders and tradies to invest, means the government is putting in place the right foundation for recovery," chief executive Denita Wawn said.
Master Builders Tasmania executive director Matthew Pollock was not overly fussed about the monthly approvals numbers, saying they tended to "bounce around".
"The industry is extremely busy," he said.
He said the industry expected there would be an uptick in approvals leading up to the December 31 deadline for the federal and state government HomeBuilder grants schemes.
Mr Pollock said about 330 HomeBuilder applications for new Tasmanian home builds had been received and about 100 of those had been conditionally approved.
"I would expect more applications and more conditional approvals as we approach the December 31 deadline," he said.