Metricon named Australia’s number one builder after the industry’s tough start to the year

Construction company Metricon Homes has emerged as the country’s most prolific builder for the fifth year in a row after the home building industry faced a tough start to an already dreary year.

Metricon Homes was named number one for the fifth year in a row.

Construction company Metricon Homes has emerged as the country’s most prolific builder for the fifth year in a row after the home building industry faced a tough start to an already dreary year.

The Housing Industry Association‘s ‘Housing 100 Report’, which ranks residential builders based on volume, showed the number of new starts by Metricon last financial year was slightly higher than last year’s result, with the 2020 portfolio of 4,534 projects largely consisting of detached homes.

Queensland-based Hutchinson Builders rose rapidly up the list to be named the second most active builder in the country with 3,820 starts. Multiple ranked third with 3,486 starts, followed by consistently high-placing ABN Group and MJH Group.

The number of new residential properties started by the top 100 builders in the country rose to 69,459 from 67,694 last year. HIA chief economist Tim Reardon did note the rise in the group’s market share from 35 per cent to 40 per cent suggests smaller home developers were hit harder by COVID-19.

“As this year’s list accounts for housing starts until the end of June 2020, the impact from COVID-19 is limited,” Mr Reardon said.

“This is the highest market share for the Housing 100 since 2013/14 and is consistent with previous trends where volume home builders are able to gain market share in a contracting market.

“This also suggests that smaller builders, particularly those outside of the Housing 100, are experiencing a disproportionate share of this market contraction.”

Detached home builders were largely consisted in their volume delivery of new properties. The appearance of more multi-unit develops on the list is unlikely to be replicated next year as the pipeline for construction slows through 2020 and 2021, said Mr Reardon

Multiplex saw a huge 646 per cent increase in the number of starts – most of them apartments – over the past year which helped it surge up the national list and become the largest multi-unit home builders.

Mr Reardon said the pandemic has compounded what was already expected to be a difficult year for the industry. A slowing in population growth and a bank imposed credit squeeze caused one of the sharpest corrections in home building on record, with the number of new housing starts falling from over 220,000 in 2018/19 to an estimated 169,000 in last financial year.

Metricon Homes were in the bottom half of the ranking in 1999 and have gradually worked its way up over the past 15 years, and have now dominated this list for the past five years. Company director Peter Langfelder said the past nine months have been difficult.

“2020 has been one right out of the box, a tough year, where we‘ve continually been required to change and innovate in the way we operate,” Mr Langfelder said.

“So, let's hope 2021 is a year of recovery and strength for the whole building industry.”