New home sales in Australia increased for the second consecutive month in November 2012 driven by a rise in sales of detached houses, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Housing Industry Association (HIA).

The HIA new home sales reported said new home sales rose 4.7 percent in November.

It said the improvement was underpinned by a lift of 7.7 percent in sales of detached house.

However, sales in multi-unit fell by 6.9 percent in November after a spike in October.

"Against the back drop of late 2012 when we had lower borrowing rates combining with a number of states encouraging new home building through amendments to first home buyer assistance, it is promising to see new home sales moving in the right direction," HIA economist Geordan Murray said in a statement.

He said new home sales were still at quite low levels despite the rise in November.

"This overall profile shows that we have a long way to go before we could consider sales volumes to be at satisfactory levels," he added.