If it wasn’t already very clear, Monday’s big miss on building approvals is more evidence that the thorny problem of increased supply in the housing market won’t be solved anytime soon.

The latest data was so bad – the 1 per cent fall in January took building approvals to a 12-year low, and detached dwellings were down 9.9 per cent in a month – that it probably should be treated with a grain of salt; there seems to be a lot of seasonal noise in economic data at the moment.