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A record housing boom is underway in Australia 2021

A record number of detached housing starts will occur in the 12 months to September 2021 with more than 146,000 detached houses commencing construction. This is more than 20 per cent higher than the peak of the previous boom in 2018.

Both New Construction and Home Renovations are Booming

The large volume of work will ensure that the building and construction industry remains very active through until at least second half of 2022.

Home Renovations are also at an all-time high and likely to remain elevated for a number of years due to the nature of the COVID recession and continued house price growth. This level of activity is not likely to be seen again for decades. A combination of factors that have led to this boom is unprecedented and are driven by:

Home Builder
Low interest rates
Consumer preference away from high density areas eg. Sea change, treechange.

The current key challenge facing the building industry has shifted from a “slump” in demand this time last year, to now having insufficient supply of materials, labour and land to satisfy this demand. If overseas migration returns sooner, or faster, than anticipated, then the trough of 93,500 new housing starts in 2023 may not be as deep as currently forecast. Equally, if the restrictions on skilled migration continue into 2022 the depth of the emerging slowdown in new detached starts may be exacerbated.

The return to stable and certain population growth is central to stable economic growth. Challenging times for the building and construction industry!