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$vuetify.icons.faPhone1300 650 620

Victoria no longer a leader in home building

Media release

Victoria no longer a leader in home building

Media release
“Victoria spent most of the last decade with one of the strongest – if not the strongest – home building markets in the country. Today it is far from the leader of the pack,” stated HIA Victoria Executive Director Keith Ryan.

HIA’s Housing Scorecard benchmarks contemporary levels of activity in each state and territory against long term averages across indicators of home building and renovations activity, lending data and population flows.

“Victoria sits in fourth place in the rankings, while the smaller jurisdictions – Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia – race ahead,” added Mr Ryan.

“Inadequate release of new greenfield and infill land for home building has resulted in Victoria having some of the most expensive residential land in the country.

“Surging land, labour, finance, regulatory and tax imposts have combined to see the construction of new housing in Victoria plummet to decade lows, while smaller states have already begun to recover.

“People are starting to return to Victoria post-pandemic, and record inflows of overseas migrants and students continue. This should continue to generate underlying demand for new housing.

“Exceptionally low unemployment rates and stable interest rates have also helped sustain the key dynamics necessary for strong demand for new home building.

“Ideally, these conditions next year should lead to an increase in demand for home building work. The challenge for Victoria is that regulatory settings may not allow the home building industry to meet this demand.

“It will increasingly be state government policies that will determine the strength of home building over the short to medium term.

“Just as state and local government policies set the limit to the floor in this cycle, the upside potential for Australia’s home building markets will also be determined by the same policy decisions.

“States that can offer sensible and fair regulatory settings, competitive taxes, employment opportunities and more affordable residential land will see a stronger outlook for home building activity in coming years.

“On the flipside, punitive taxes and misguided regulations will only compound the costs and constraints that weigh on the industry, delaying growth and making it even more difficult to attract consumers back to the market,” concluded Mr Ryan.

Download our HIA Housing Scorecard

Source: HIA Economics

For more information please contact:

Keith Ryan

Executive Director - Victoria

Thomas Devitt

Senior Economist
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