The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has updated its dwelling starts forecasts, which now tips a steady decline in detached house construction all the way to 2024 on the back of rising interest rates and high construction costs:
It is anticipated there will have been 131,730 detached starts in 2021/22. This is just 6.7 per cent below last year’s record. Unfortunately, the slowdown in starts will continue with 121,320 starts expected in 2022/23 through to a trough in 2024/25 of around 99,330 starts. Multi-unit starts will have been just 76,930 starts in 2021/22, up 4.8 per cent off the previous financial year, but 35.1 below the peak in 2015/16. Multi-unit starts are expected to increase by 4.4 per cent to 80,270 in 2022/23 with a further 2.5 per cent increase in 2023/24.
The decline in home construction would obviously run headlong into the Albanese Government’s ‘Big Australia’ immigration ramp-up.
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Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
