Outlook for new home construction has ‘improved significantly’

This news comes as the HIA has updated its set of state and national outlook reports, which include its forecast for residential building.

Of particular note is that of the rise of detached house building, he said.

“The big story of recent months is the resilience shown by the detached house building side of the market,” Mr Garrett said.

“Detached house starts touched very elevated levels during the back end of 2017, and latest building approvals data indicate that things are set to remain strong here for a few more months.”

The demand for the construction of new houses is said by Mr Garrett to be a result of strong population gains and number of new jobs being created.

In previous years, 2017 saw a decline of 7.9 per cent in new home construction, which followed record levels being set the year before in 2016.

“The overall reduction in new home building activity last year was caused by the imposition of additional taxes on foreign buyers looking to acquire newly-built homes. The tightening up of regulations and financing conditions has also placed pressure on new home building activity — particularly apartments,” Mr Garrett said.

“Despite the strength of population growth, we expect that these regulatory factors will place a drag on new home building activity over the next few years and that the bottoming out point will be reached in 2020.

“By then, it is expected that a considerable well of pent-up demand for housing will emerge and fuel renewed expansion in new home building activity.”