First-home buyers, regional areas to benefit from Australian home-building bonanza

Australians are set to build more houses this year than ever before, and buyers eager to get a foot on the property ladder are likely to be big winners.

Exclusive: Australians are set to build more houses in 2021 than ever before with regional areas and first-home buyers to be the big winners of a 130,000 home bonanza.

But a “dark shadow” looms for the nation’s builders in 2023 with one of the country’s most influential housing groups warning detached home construction will fall to levels not seen since the global financial crisis.

Forecasts from the Housing Industry Association to be released today have revealed the construction will be worth about $40bn to the nation’s economy.

The figure trumps the 120,000 house builds recorded in 2018, and secures about 500,000 construction jobs nationwide — as well as tens of thousands in fringe industries.

Housing Industry Association chief economist Tim Reardon. Picture: Supplied

HIA chief economist Tim Reardon said the federal HomeBuilder grants scheme was the “primary cause of this upgrade in our forecast”, which had sunk as low as 80,000 in worst case scenarios considered last year.

The government program offers those building or substantially renovating a home a $25,000 or $15,000 grant, and as of yesterday had attracted almost 85,118 applications nationwide, despite initially being envisaged to support just 27,000 households.

HIA are expecting a significant surge in applications when the program ends on March 31, with builders “holding onto contracts” so the clock starts on the six-month time limit as late as possible.

However, Mr Reardon warned the industry faced a “dark shadow” in a few years time.

“The contraction in 2023 will be similar in scale and timing to what we saw after the GFC,” he said.

“This year home builders will pull the economy out of recession, but in 2023 we will need the economy to pull home builders forward.”

Housing Minister Michael Sukkar said the HIA forecasts were a “testament to Australia’s tradies”.

“(But) there is no denying there are still challenges ahead in our recovery,” Mr Sukkar said.

Australians are set to build more houses in 2021 than ever before with regional areas and first-home buyers to be the big winners of a 130,000 home bonanza. Picture: Supplied

A nationwide hunt for tradies is already underway, with the country’s largest volume home builder Metricon noting regional construction workers were in high demand in Victoria, Queensland, NSW and South Australia.

Director Peter Langfelder said they were seeking everything from site managers to painters, brickies and administrative staff.

Victoria will build the most houses nationwide, with more than 10,000 expected to start construction every three months throughout 2021, breaking records that have stood since 2009.

But with the pandemic exacerbating a trend of sea- and tree-change moves across Australia, regional areas will be in the spotlight nationwide.

The figures anticipate NSW will have 7000 new houses started a quarter for the rest of the year, more than 6000 in Queensland, about 5000 in WA and around 2500 every three months in South Australia.

Despite starting just over 800 new houses a quarter, Tasmania will have its best year since the 1970s.

Despite the good news for housing construction, apartment building will decline everywhere except WA and Queensland, with just 50,000 new units expected to commence nationwide in 2021.

Originally published as First-home buyers, regional areas to benefit from Australian home-building bonanza