A jump in the number of new home applications in the past week has renewed hopes that the Dubbo building industry is back on track.
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Applications to Dubbo City Council have risen by 50 per cent leading to speculation that the worst slump in 30 years has finally bottomed out.
Council’s environmental services director Doug Herd said a clearer picture should emerge within the next couple of days.
“There is a possibility we may have turned a corner and that confidence in the building industry is on the rise,” Mr Herd said yesterday
“Our guess at the moment is that by February and March things should have returned to a buoyant state.”
Just this month the GST, rising interest rates and a sluggish Aussie dollar were blamed for producing some of the worst home building application figures in three decades.
Confidence in the local building industry, council claimed, also took a battering when award-winning company Carling Constructions went belly-up earlier in the year and was placed into liquidation.
In the first three months of this financial year council approved the construction of 17 houses, down from 73 for same period last year. During July, 10 homes were approved, falling to three in August and four in September.
Mayor Allan Smith welcomed the upturn saying it was good news for the city.
