The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its ‘Characteristics of New Residential Dwellings’ report, detailing building costs and floorspace movement over the past 15 years nationally.
Across the country, house, apartment and townhouse average building costs grew by 59.5 per cent between 2004-05 and 2018-19. Despite the steep increase, the ABS said floor areas of residential dwellings remained relatively unchanged.
Most of the increase occurred in the years prior to 2012: housebuilding costs were shown to have stabilised to just 2.1 per cent in FY 2018-19 with townhouse and apartment building costs rising by 12.1 per cent and 10.6 per cent respectively.
Western Australia recorded the largest change in the country with housebuilding costs rising by 78.5 per cent during the 15-year period.
Homebuilding costs across the board are thus outpacing inflation, the consumer price index (CPI), wage growth and have even managed to coincide with many Australian builders switching their material supply chains to cheaper exporters such as China.
The ABS also announced its homebuilding activity report for the December quarter with construction work being done dropping by 4.7 per cent to $28.9 billion.
The ongoing effects of the summer bushfires and the evolving coronavirus crisis are yet to be analysed.
