New home sales fell in April to be 54.4% lower than March as HomeBuilder came to an end. The HIA New Home Sales report, a monthly survey of the largest volume home builders in the five largest states, is a leading indicator of future detached home construction. Source: Timberbiz
“This sales result for April 2021 is an encouragingly strong result. It suggests that there is a significant volume of new homes to be built for customers not eligible for HomeBuilder,” HIA’s Economist, Angela Lillicrap said.
“Despite being well below recent peaks, sales in April 2021 are just 2.7%lower than the average month prior to the COVID shock.
“There is an unprecedented volume of building starts set to occur in 2021,” she said.
HomeBuilder and lower interest rates had facilitated a surge in demand for detached homes that ensured a record number of new detached homes would be built this year and into 2022.
However, a cooling in sales was to be expected as the grants available through the HomeBuilder program came to an end in March.
“The housing market in 2020 was heavily impacted by COVID-19, experiencing both record highs and record lows,” Ms Lillicrap said.
“As a result, in this edition of New Home Sales we are also comparing sales in 2021 to 2019, which is considered to be a ‘normal’ year.
“The demographic shift in population towards regional locations and low interest rates will continue to drive demand for new homes over the months to come, albeit at a level well below recent peaks.”
Sales in April 2021 declined across all the five largest jurisdictions compared to the previous month. South Australia declined by 71.7%, followed by Queensland (-65.6%) and Victoria (-65.4%). New South Wales fell by 22.4% and Western Australia fell by 15.2% over the same period.
Sales in April 2021 were higher than their monthly average in 2019 in New South Wales (+30.3%) and Western Australia (+27.5%). The remaining states declined over the same period – Queensland (-4.8%), South Australia (-13.4%) and Victoria (-26.5%).
