Renovations recovery continues to battle on: HIA

GUEST OBSERVER

The Housing Industry Association has released the latest edition of Renovations Roundup.

The report offers the most comprehensive quarterly analysis of the home renovations market in each of the eight states and territories, and outlines forecasts for renovations activity. Renovations Roundup also provides results of the exclusive HIA Renovations Survey undertaken in February 2016, in which over 900 businesses and individuals participated. 

The HIA Renovations Survey provides a comprehensive update on conditions within the sector.

Repairs and maintenance are the most popular type of job, followed by kitchen and bathroom renovations.

A significant 24 percent of renovation jobs fall within the value range of $12,000 to $40,000. The survey also found that 13 percent of renovation jobs fell in the range of $200,000 to $400,000. This reflects demand for comprehensive renovation work which covers a large part of the footprint of an existing house and is an area of the renovations market that should gather momentum in coming years.

Total renovations activity grew for a second consecutive year in 2015, rising by 4.4 pe cent.

However, the recovery remains quite fragile and there is considerable geographic variation to activity.

Several markets are benefitting from the improving labour market along with stronger dwelling price growth. In other places, weak earnings growth, relatively low turnover of established houses and tighter credit conditions are holding activity back.

The Renovations Roundup projects that renovations activity will increase by 0.7 percent this year with growth of 1.7 percent forecast for 2017. HIA projects that activity will grow by 2.8 percent in 2018 followed by a 3.2 percent increase in 2019, bringing the total volume of renovations activity to $33.02 billion.

Shane Garrett is senior economist for HIA and can be contacted here.