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The HIA New Home Sales report is a monthly survey of the largest volume home builders in the five largest states and is a leading indicator of future detached home construction.
“Victoria was the only one of the five largest states to have seen a fall in new home sales in the month, which left the three months to January 2025 down by 6.6 per cent compared to the previous quarterly period,” added Mr Ryan.
“When compared to the previous year, new home sales in Victoria have remained virtually unchanged, falling by 0.5 per cent.
“This makes Victoria the only one of the five largest states to have not seen an improvement in sales from this cycle’s trough. Australia’s largest home building market should be doing much better than this with a growing population and high employment rates.
“This flat result in new home sales is also evident in other leading indicators of home building activity, with house approvals in the 2024 calendar year up by just 1.5 per cent compared to 2023.
“The flat sales and approvals results came just before the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates in February. This is expected to help boost activity in the new housing market.
“HIA forecasts detached home building starts in Victoria to increase modestly in 2024/25, up by 3.2 per cent from very weak levels in the previous year.
“Interest rate cuts should help increase demand for new homes. However, far more important will be the policy decisions that either increase or decrease the costs of land and construction in Victoria. It is becoming clearer that Victoria’s excessive tax burden is a major cause of the poor performance of the home building industry. If Victoria continues to lag behind other states in coming months, it will be harder to blame interest rates for reduced consumer demand.
“If the Victorian government wants to achieve its housing targets and address the housing crisis, policy reforms are needed to reduce the costs of land and construction,” concluded Mr Ryan.
Over the past few weeks HIA has been advocating strongly on behalf of members on a range of policy and regulatory issues that have significant implications for housing supply, business confidence and the capacity of our industry to deliver the homes Australia needs.
The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has today written to the Tasmanian Government calling for a commitment that state-funded and state-partnered housing work will continue to be awarded on merit, not industrial arrangements, warning new federal procurement rules could shrink the pool of builders able to deliver the homes Tasmania needs.
The Victorian Government continues to push ahead with its Working from Home laws despite the Housing Industry Association’s (HIA) call for it to abandon its proposed legislation, warning the changes would impose additional regulatory pressure on businesses already struggling and kill productivity.
Hobart has been identified as the most restrictive capital city in Australia for planning, according to the Australian Zoning Atlas, which found 97 per cent of the city's residential land is subject to restrictions that limit new housing.