Build times blow out as new home buyers cautiously return

Although we are seeing the return of new homebuyers to the market, one of the biggest impediments to building new over buying an existing home is the time it takes to build.

New data released from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that detached home and apartment building times continue to blow out.

Fifteen years ago, it took on average nine months to build a stand-a-alone house. Fast forward to today and it now takes 12.7 months, an increase of more than 40 per cent.

It’s even more grim for apartment building with an average of 18.5 months from approval to completion to a whopping 33.3 months, an increase of 80 per cent.

Master Builders Australia chief executive officer Denita Wawn said these extended construction timeframes were affecting the industry’s ability to meet housing demand and tackle the housing crisis.

“With advancements in technology and construction methods, we should be building homes faster, not slower.

“There are a range of contributing factors including labour shortages, declining productivity, union pattern agreements, supply chain disruptions, complex regulatory requirements, occupational certificate backlogs and critical infrastructure delays.

“As a result, we’ve seen productivity decline by 18 per cent over the past decade.

“Productivity is more than an economic buzzword, this data proves what happens in a construction environment without meaningful reform.”

Master Builders Australia is calling for action to address these bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the construction process.

“Streamlining regulatory approval processes, encouraging adoption of digital solutions, introducing incentives to grow the workforce through domestic and international means, and strengthening the domestic supply chain are just some examples,” Ms Wawn said.

Despite this alarming blowout in build times, the new ABS data shows an uptake in detached house approvals across Australia by 6.1 per cent in the month of September to 9,890.

This is the highest monthly number of detached house approvals in two years, revealing there were 28,970 detached house approvals nationally in the September quarter 2024, which is 4.1 per cent higher than in the previous quarter and 12.9 per cent higher than at the same time in the previous year.