House and land package buyers expect to be ahead pricewise on construction completion: HIA
New homes sales jumped around 15 per cent in June, according to the HIA New Home Sales report.
The data comes from a survey of the largest volume home builders in the five largest states.
Private new detached home sales rose by 14.8 per cent in June to 5,841.
Over the year to June, sales were 44.9 per cent higher than the previous year.
“The strength of new home sales nationally suggests that there will be a significant number of new homes entering the pipeline post HomeBuilder which will ensure activity remains elevated into 2022,” HIA economist Angela Lillicrap said.
While sales in the June 2021 quarter are below the levels experienced during the nine months of the HomeBuilder program they are stronger than the same quarter in 2019 and on par with the June 2018 quarter, which was a strong year for detached home building.
“Record low interest rates and confidence in the housing market are driving demand from owner occupiers.
“Strong house price growth is also a contributing factor," she said.
"Households enter into a contract to build with the expectation that house prices will continue to grow and the property will be worth more when it is completed," she said.
The strength in new home sales is not occurring evenly across the states.
“New home sales in New South Wales and Western Australia were over a third higher in the June 2021 quarter compared to the same time in 2019.
Sales in Queensland were 4.4 per cent higher compared to the June 2019 quarter, while Victoria is flat (down by 0.1 per cent).
South Australia had the strongest response to HomeBuilder, but sales since the end of the program remain lower by 14.4 per cent compared to the June 2019 quarter.
“This strong volume of sales will continue to pull the national economy forward,” concluded Ms Lillicrap.
No data was published by the HIA for multi-unit sales.
The HIA publish an annual Housing 100 Report which lists the nation’s top residential builders.
Metricon Homes top the last published list with a total of 4,534 new home starts across Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.
Of these starts, 4,303 were detached houses and 170 were semi-detached dwellings,” added Mr Reardon.
The second most active builder in 2019/20 – and the nation’s largest apartment builder – Hutchies had 3,820 housing starts, followed by Multiplex with 3,486 starts.
Despite Covid, the 28th annual HIA–Colorbond® steel Housing 100 Report 2019/20 survey showed that the number of new home starts by the nation’s largest 100 builders increased from 67,694 to 69,459.