Today’s announcement by the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing, Michael Sukkar, that the HomeBuilder commencement time will be extended to 18 months is extremely welcome news for the housing industry, the economy and for those embracing the HomeBuilder grant.
Today’s announcement by the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing, Michael Sukkar, that the HomeBuilder commencement time will be extended to 18 months is extremely welcome news for the housing industry, the economy and for those embracing the HomeBuilder grant.
“The uptake of HomeBuilder has created a lifeline of work for tradies and helped support tens of thousands of first home buyers to achieve their dream of owning a home,” said HIA Managing Director, Graham Wolfe.
“Yet members have been severely impacted by global supply constraints and labour pressures. Builders and their clients have also been juggling delays in finance approvals, planning and building approvals and land title.
“HIA has been working closely with the Government since Christmas providing on the ground data and up to date information on home sales, building activity and supply chain issues impacting the industry’s capacity to deliver on the enormous success of the HomeBuilder program.
“Today’s announcement to extend the start time by a further 12 months from the current 6 month requirement reflects the Government’s commitment to support builders and streamline the delivery of the more than 120,000 homes and renovations now taking advantage of the grant.
“The good work that HomeBuilder has done to stimulate the economy and retain jobs will be fully realised. Builders can now continue progressing the contracts they have in an orderly way.
“HomeBuilder had an immediate impact from the day it was announced. It has injected confidence in the housing industry – for builders, trade contractors, manufacturers, suppliers and into the retail sector – at a time when hundreds of thousands of jobs were at risk.
“That confidence supported, saved and retained existing jobs and created new jobs across the housing industry throughout Australia.
“Workers in jobs that were disappearing early last year were reinstated as the pipeline of work from sales, design and client engagement through to construction expanded. The HomeBuilder program will support these jobs into 2022 and beyond. Hundreds of thousands of workers.
“Latest ABS data shows that house commencements surged by 27.0 per cent in the final quarter of 2020 to their highest level since March 2000,” concluded Mr Wolfe.
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