‘Pull out all the stops’: WA home completions already behind national housing goals

Western Australia is already hundreds of homes behind the national housing target just three months into the scheme, according to new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The dwelling completion data shows 5924 homes were built across the state in the September quarter – more than 500 homes behind its target for the first three months of the National Housing Accord timeframe, which aims for 1.2 million homes to be built by 2029.

New dwelling completions are up in WA, but still falling short of the number needed.Credit: Arsineh Houspian

To build its fair share of the accord’s target, WA would need about 130,000 homes to be finished by the end of June 2029.

That equates to about 6500 homes each quarter, or 26,000 a year. Last financial year, 17,700 homes were built across the state.

However, the September quarter’s home completions represented a 32.8 per cent jump compared to the previous June quarter.

Property Council WA executive director Nicola Brischetto said the new figures were very encouraging.

“This is the largest increase in home completions of any Australian state or territory,” she said.

“The state government’s modernisation of Western Australia’s planning is starting to pay dividends but the availability of skilled labour and the challenging financial feasibility of building multi-home projects, such as apartments, are the most significant barriers to WA meeting its target.”

Brischetto said high demand and a shortfall in housing stock would continue to put upwards pressure on home prices.

“If we don’t pull out all the stops now, we risk homeownership falling further out of reach for entire generations of West Australians,” she said.

Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said while the strong rebound in new detached house constructions has been welcomed by the industry, there was still a long way to go to reach the level of output required to hit the accord target.

“Our performance in apartment construction will be the key to whether we meet the target. Apartment construction levels remain too low because the investment appetite is not there,” she said.

“Low productivity, labour shortages, costly and restrictive CFMEU pattern agreements, a lack of supporting infrastructure and a high inflationary environment all contribute to project costs not stacking up.

“If we are going to solve the housing crisis, we need to build more apartments and make them more attractive for people to invest in – only then will we see a lowering of rental inflation and more homes for Aussies.”

Premier Roger Cook said WA was closing in on its target with a significant uplift in home approvals over the past few months.

“We know that we’ve got a challenge. We are literally throwing everything at the housing issue,” he said.

“We’re seeing green shoots of positivity, the increase in rental vacancy rates, we are now 1.9 per cent from just 0.7 per cent in September, we’ve seen an easing of the increases in the value of in the median price for real estate.

“These are all encouraging, but we know there’s more to do.”

Get to the heart of what’s happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.