Economists say the soaring level of house approvals are great, but property prices will probably stay high.

New Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show 16,810 new homes were approved nation-wide in August, a rise of 3 per cent from July.

Many economists predicted a rise of about 0.5 per cent.

Showing the weight of the trend, approvals for the year to August were up 14.5 per cent.

JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy says local building firms won’t be resting for a while.

“There is still a bit of work in the pipeline to go, at least in the residential space, which should be supportive for growth as we head into the back half of the year,” he said.

He also said that construction of detached houses was creating the most stimulus for the economy.

“It is a little lopsided in the sense that it is high residential buildings that are doing the heavy lifting here, but in saying that, detached housing is still tracking at good levels and levels that are still pretty close to record highs,” Mr Kennedy said.

National Australia Bank senior economist Spiros Papadopoulos said is shows housing supply is not the only factor driving up prices.

“We had a big surge in building approvals towards the end of last year on the private houses side, and we’ve got ongoing growth in the apartments side during the course of this year,” he said.

“We’re going to see a lot of construction activity and supply coming on stream but that’s going to take some time, because it’ll take a while for these houses to be built... and indeed until the Reserve Bank is in a position to raise interest rates again,” he said.

RBA assistant governor Malcolm Edey signalled last week that new regulations will soon be introduced to calm Australia’s housing market by increasing housing construction.