This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
HIA has named Metricon Homes as Australia’s largest residential builder for the ninth year in a row, after the builder reported 3,894 new home sales across four states over 2023/24.
The HIA-COLORBOND steel Housing 100 Report was the tightest it has been in 35 years, with ABN Group chasing closely behind Metricon with just 13 fewer home sales for the year.
While Meriton Apartments rounded out the top three with 3,291 starts across NSW and Queensland, moving up a spot from the previous year.
“Market confidence is returning to the new home market as interest rates remained on hold for the tenth consecutive month,” said Tim Reardon, chief economist at HIA.
“Low levels of unemployment and strong population growth have driven ongoing demand for new homes, despite the increase in the cost of borrowing and a decline in household consumption. The recovery in market confidence isn’t evenly distributed across each jurisdiction, and this has had an impact on the results of this year’s Housing 100.”
Meriton Apartments also came in as the top ranked apartment builder in the country with 3,277-unit sales, followed by Multiplex with 2,244 homes built and Hutchies with 1,745.
“Leading indicators suggest that the volume of home building activity is set to increase in the second half of 2024 and into 2025,” added Reardon.
“Increasingly the outlook for home building is dominated by local factors such as the price of land and state government taxes. For this reason, a recovery in building activity in New South Wales appears set to lag all other jurisdictions.
Metricon’s home starts were spread across Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia.
“While we are proud of Metricon’s achievements last year, we note that to be the largest builder in Australia with under 4,000 site starts it’s clear that the country is falling behind on delivering the homes that have been identified as essential,” said Brad Duggan, CEO at Metricon.
“We need to accelerate momentum in the industry. It’s time to move beyond the sole focus on social housing and tackle the bigger picture: cutting planning red tape, increasing access to land, growing the country’s trade base, scrapping discussions on tax changes impacting investors and superannuation funds, and crucially, addressing the cost-of-living crisis. These are the real levers to restore customer confidence and get people building again.”
In July, new home starts fell to their lowest annual level since 2012 in the year to March according to ABS figures. While earlier this month approvals saw a boost in the first month of the Albanese Government’s National Housing Accord, hitting a 14-month high.
