Australian new home sales hit 15-year low in Aug.

Australia's new home sales fell to a 15-year low in August, indicating Tuesday's rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia came at the right time, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) said Wednesday. The HIA New Home Sales report, a survey of Australia's largest volume builders, showed a decline of 5.3 percent in new home sales in August, reflecting a fall of 5.8 percent in the detached housing sales and a 2.5 percent drop in the multi-unit market. "New home sales for August are the latest in a string of soft new housing updates for this financial year, and that follows a very weak year for new home building in 2011/12," he said in a statement. "A fresh round of interest rate cuts will help rebalance this situation, although financial institutions obviously need to play their role in cementing this outcome." However, Dale said that rate cuts were not the only action needed to generate the new home building recovery in Australia. "Governments have an important role to play in driving reform measures to lower the excessive tax base faced by the sector," he said.