New home sales under-reported by 30% - DNG report

James Cox

The number of new homes sold every year is being unreported by over 30 per cent, according to real estate agent DNG.

It claims the Property Price Register didn't report homes bought in 2023 by the non-household sector, which includes local authorities and financial institutions.

Its research shows the sale of multiple units sold in a block was registered as one unit.

The study revealed the actual number of sales equated to over 17,000, instead of nearly the 12,000 that were reported in 2023.

Director of Research at DNG, Paul Murgatroyd, claims the PPR is inadvertently under-reporting yearly sales.

He told Newstalk: "We uncovered that there were actually an additional 5,163 new units sales in 2023 that were not captured as individual line items on the PPR.

"That equates to 30.8 per cent of all the new homes sold last year... so inadvertently the PPR is under-reporting the total number of new units sold in the market each year."