Since the announcement of the Federal Government’s HomeBuilder scheme, enquiries to developers on realestate.com.au have surged to record levels.
Buyer appetite for new homes is surging, with enquiry to developers jumping by 62.8 per cent in June. This spike followed on from a bullish 53.9 per cent increase in May.
All signs suggest the announcement of HomeBuilder in early June has led to a further surge in the already increasing interest in new properties.
Not surprisingly, land estate enquiries have recorded the largest jump over the month, up 93 per cent, followed by a 29.4 per cent increase in apartment leads and a much lower 4.3 per cent lift in enquiries for new retirement properties.
Over the past two months, enquiries for land estates have risen by 222.2 per cent while apartment enquiries are 79.1 per cent higher and retirement enquiries have increased 107.1 per cent.
Nationally, last month saw a record number of developer enquiries.
The Northern Territory was the only state or territory in which enquiries fell last month (-21.2%) while enquiries trebled in Tasmania (203.5%), more than doubled in Western Australia (179%) and almost doubled in Queensland (97.2%) and South Australia (98.8%).
Although enquiry has surged, the number of developer page views was down -5.5 per cent in June compared to May. The fact that enquiry has surged at a time when page views have reduced suggests high buyer intent.
Land estates were the only category in which page views increased last month (11.3%) with falls recorded for apartment (-14.2%) and retirement (-16.4%) categories.
Looking at overall page views by state last month, increases were recorded in South Australia (9.2%), Western Australia (11.5%), Tasmania (18.8%) and Australian Capital Territory (4.1%) while falls were recorded elsewhere, the largest of which occurred in Northern Territory (-23.1%) and Victoria (-9.9%).
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The surging interest in home designs and builder profiles suggests that many potential buyers are yet to decide exactly where they would like to purchase but are showing intent to choose a builder and design their new home.
Artist’s impression of Akuna Vista in Schofields, which was the most enquired after house and land development on realestate.com.au in June.
Although HomeBuilder has received some criticism, mostly around the requirements for the renovation aspect of the stimulus, it is clear that it is helping to drive demand for new housing. In particular, enquiries and page views for land estates have increased substantially last month following an increase the previous month before HomeBuilder was announced.
Artist’s impression of Rhodes Central Stage 3 in Rhodes NSW, which was the most enquired after new apartment development on realestate.com.au in June.
Of course, for first home buyers HomeBuilder is an additional $25,000 incentive on top of additional incentives that already exist in all states and territories, many of which are also targeted at the new housing sector.
Given this, I anticipate that HomeBuilder will be extremely attractive for first-home buyers and is likely to pull-forward purchase decisions from this buyer cohort. The challenge is likely to come once the first-home buyer pull-forward is exhausted (there is only a finite supply of these buyers and incentives are only available until the end of 2020) and, assuming international borders remain closed, there are no replacement sources of demand for new homes in 2021.
In the meantime, I expect that there will be ongoing elevated levels of enquiry to developers as buyers look to capitalise on these attractive incentives and historic low borrowing costs.