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.
Forecasts from the Housing Industry Association reveal this construction will be worth about $40 billion to the nation’s economy. The figure tops the 120,000 dwellings built in 2018 and secures 500,000 construction jobs nationwide.
HIA chief economist Tim Reardon says the HomeBuilder grant is the “primary cause of this upgrade in our forecast”.
The federal program offers those building or substantially renovating a home a $25,000 or $15,000 grant – and has attracted 85,000 applications nationwide. The HIA is expecting a surge in applications as the program ends on March 31.
This is reflected in other data. Land demand jumped 25% in the September 2020 Quarter to be 63% higher than at the same time in 2019. The increase is being felt across both capital cities and regional areas.
In regional areas, the volume of residential land sales has risen 56%. This is likely due to the capability to work from home which has enabled home-buyers to look at locations that would previously have been considered too far from their workplace.
