This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
DESPITE a highly publicised challenging year, Metricon Homes was named Australia’s largest residential builder for 2021/22, holding the title for seventh consecutive year.
According to the recently released HIA-COLORBOND® steel® Housing 100 Report, which rank’s Australia’s largest 100 residential builders based on the number of homes commenced per annum, Metricon Homes reported a total of 5,969 home starts.
Metricon’s total was just under the previous year’s top result of 6,052 starts, with the commencements spanning Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.
“We’re very proud to be ranked number one for the seventh consecutive year and to have grown Metricon’s share of the national residential build market during this challenging period for the construction industry. This is a demonstration of the dedication of our team, our passion for what we do, and most importantly the Australian families we do it for,” said Peter Langfelder, CEO at Metricon.
“Our future construction pipeline shows we’re in good shape to deliver around 6,000 site-starts scheduled in 2023.”
It has been a challenging year for Metricon following the death of its founder. The company has had to combat industry and media speculation about its future.
The number two spot was taken by MJH Group (NXT Building Group) who recorded 4,143 starts and moved up from fourth in 2019/20.
Hutchinson Builders followed with 3,829 starts and also took the mantle of the largest apartment builder for the year.
This is an exceptional result given the tough market conditions in the multi-unit market compared to the boom conditions in the detached market,” said Tim Reardon, chief economist at HIA.
Fourth and fifth were taken out by ABN Group with 3,393 and the AHB Group with 2,973.
“These results are against a market that has seen new home starts lower than the record set the previous year. For this reason, two thirds of the builders in this year’s Housing 100 commenced fewer homes than in 2020/21,” added Reardon.
Reardon also noted that over the 12 month period the market share of the largest 100 builders also constricted from 44% to 36%, after the market was dominated by the impacts of high material prices, record levels of demand, supply chain issues and labour shortages.
“The supply of building materials has improved significantly in recent months. Shipping costs are declining and the rise in building material costs on the ground is slowing. In some cases, prices have fallen. The cost of building will continue to increase in 2022/23, but at a slower rate than last year,” added Reardon.
The largest 100 builders also accounted for 77% of detached homes built over the period, while also building 15.0% fewer homes from 88,215 starts to 74,973.
“A notable feature of the market in 2021/22 was the return of apartment builders. The loss of overseas migration saw the apartment market shrink rapidly at the start of the pandemic, but a return to work and study is seeing the apartment market recovering. A stabilisation in the cost of construction combined with an acute shortage of rental accommodation will continue to see a strengthening in the apartment market,” said Reardon.
In line with this the largest 100 built 4% fewer detached houses over the year, while building 21.3% more multi-units.
At the same time these builders earned 8.8% more revenue from home construction as costs mount, reaching $34.7 billion.
“The return of overseas students, tourists and migrants will see the number of multi-unit dwelling starts continue to recover the further we get away from the pandemic,” concluded Reardon.
