There are enough new homes in the pipeline to keep builders busy through next year, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) announced this week.
The latest HIA New Home Sales report shows that sales over the three months ending August 2021 were 15.4 per cent higher than at the same time in 2019.
In the three months, Western Australia led the pack, up by 60.0 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2019, followed by New South Wales (up 28.1 per cent) and Victoria (up 6.7 per cent). Queensland and South Australia did not fare so well (down 1.5 and 15.2 per cent) respectively.
HIA Economist Tom Devitt predicts the boom in detached home building will continue to create strong employment opportunities into the second half of 2022.
“New home sales remained strong in August, albeit not at the record levels observed prior to the end of HomeBuilder in March 2021”, Devitt says.
Sales in the three months to August 2021 were 15.5 per cent lower than the same time in 2020.
Devitt thinks a more reasonable timeframe for comparison is the same period in 2018 and 2019, before the adverse impact of COVID-19 and the stimulus from HomeBuilder.
“In the past three months sales were 15.4 per cent higher than at the same time in 2019 and 4.5 per cent higher than the same time in 2018.
“This strength in sales of new detached homes is likely due to increased household savings during the pandemic”, he says, adding that there has also been a switch in market preference toward lower density homes as working from home becomes entrenched.