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Is Australia building enough homes yet?

It looks like Australia's housing construction boom may be reaching its peak.

A new housing estate in western Sydney

(AAP)

There's some more evidence Australia's economy is transitioning from the mining boom to a housing boom.

The Housing Industry Association has upgraded its forecast for the number of homes being built this year.

It is now expecting 180,000 new dwellings to be built, an increase of 8.2 per cent this year.

What's interesting, is that 180,000 is the number of homes many economists say need to be built per year to meet the demand from a growing population.

That may help to ease price growth in some areas in the short term, however, that level of construction won't last.

The HIA is predicting dwelling starts will ease back from 2015 onwards, but still remain above the recent average.

HIA Dwelling Starts Forecast - Australia

The HIA is predicting levels will rise however in the years after 2014 in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, although NSW will see the most homes built all up, forecasting 50,800 this year, 50,700 next and 46,800 the year after that.

 


1 min read

Published

Updated

By Ricardo Goncalves


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