“The Queensland residential building industry remains on track to experience a significant downturn in building activity in the fourth quarter of the year,” says HIA Queensland Executive Director Mike Roberts.
Contrary to some observations that the Queensland building industry has remained relatively unscathed by the impact of coronavirus, detached house approvals issued for June (2020) reveal a drop of almost 16 per cent for the month.
“That takes the total drop in approvals since the crisis hit in April (2020) to 25.9 per cent” says Mr Roberts. This puts the number of approvals for the quarter 36.4 per cent lower than the April quarter in 2018.
“With the lead times involved in the construction of a new home the drop in approvals now will play out in the fourth quarter of the year with a corresponding drop in construction.”
While the Federal Government’s HomeBuilder Scheme has generated significant interest in new home building, the delayed implementation of the scheme by the Queensland Government means the high level of interest is not being translated into actual contracts signed.
“Everyone is waiting for the Government to release the application rules because until they do no one really knows for sure if they will be eligible. The banks can’t confirm loans, consumers don’t know what is involved and the builders can’t confirm when they can actually start work.
“It’s been almost two months since the HomeBuilder scheme was announced and builders and their clients are becoming extremely frustrated by the delays. Some clients are starting to lose interest in the idea of building a new home in this state.
“The question I keep being asked is ’why is it taking so long?’ How hard can it be to design the process and why aren’t we taking on board the process now in place in five other jurisdictions?”
“As a proud Queenslander I do wonder why we seem to be running last on this issue. The Queensland Government was the last State to sign up to the HomeBuilder program and we are now the last State to release the application rules.”
“Queensland home buyers and home builders deserve more.”
Source: HIA