The Housing Industry Association says the Hunter is still riding the housing approval wave with 4,476 dwellings approved in the region over the past year.
According to the latest HIA Scorecard report, Newcastle leads the Hunter in the number of approvals with 1,419 followed by Lake Macquarie with 1,149 and Maitland 907.
Meanwhile, Singleton experienced the largest increase in new dwelling approvals up 173 percent followed by Dungog up 79 percent and Gloucester 58 percent.
HIA Hunter Executive Director Craig Jennion says he expects the Hunter to continue to ride the wave well into 2018.
"The really good news is that we are starting to see some of the middle ring councils in the Hunter - by that I mean Singleton, Dungog and Gloucester - in that particular order they have had the largest increase in the last 12 months, off very low base.
"That is starting to show that confidence in what is a mining area, which has been on a downward spiral for a number of years is starting to pick up.
"We are continuing to build on the peak that we have seen for the past few years. It is a bit unexpected for the Hunter, we did start to expect to come off the boil a little bit, but at the moment our numbers are - both in detached dwellings and in unit approvals - elevated over recent highs in the past five or six years," Mr Jennion said.
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| HIA Hunter Executive Director Craig Jennion. |
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| Atrium apartments under construction in Hamilton. Image: Jarrod Melmeth |
