New Land Market Update – March 2021

With Red23

Melbourne will continue to remain the largest new homes market nationally as the HomeBuilder Scheme comes to an end.

Although, Red23 is expecting sales momentum to subdue to levels seen towards the end of 2020. The HomeBuilder scheme helped absorb the sales of titled and near titled lots that were abundant in 2019. The number of titled lots have now diminished in most municipalities.

In March 2020, approximately 22 per cent of available land lots were titled, increasing in June ’20 to 40 per cent before gradually decreasing quarter on quarter to 22 per cent in December. As of February 21, only 17 per cent of available land was titled.

Wyndham witnessed an increase in the number of titled lots in February 2021, whilst the overall number of lots available fell by 20 per cent. The total of lots available have halved since September 2020.

Casey and Hume currently have the lowest number of titled lots at four per cent. Casey has had the largest percentage of titled lots absorbed, peaking at 46 per cent or more than 270 titled lots in June ’20 to now just over 10 lots.

Land prices have decreased slightly since January ’21 and now remain steady at $325,000, the same median land price as 12 months ago.

Hume continues to witness month on month falls, possibly due to the number of new land lots available in Sunbury, which has a much more affordable price point than other areas of Hume such as Greenvale and Craigieburn.

Over the last 12 months, Hume has fallen by just under 5 per cent however has continued to sell consistently well with less than 150 land lots on the market.

Greater Geelong has dipped 1.97 per cent month on month albeit land size of available lots are higher than in January. The median rate per sqm dipped slightly from $679/sqm to $636/sqm. Little change in median price was witnessed in February, however the year on year change was highest in Casey (7.32 per cent), Greater Geelong (5.37 per cent) and Melton (4.35 per cent).

Overall, there are approximately 2,500 land lots on the market in the municipalities listed in Table 1, a fall of 44 per cent since the end of March 2020. The number of titled lots have fallen by 57 per cent in the same time frame, indicating strong sales rates and in most corridors, between 2-3 months’ worth of stock to sell.