Interest in new homes in Canberra prevails despite HomeBuilder cut-off 

It’s been more than a month now since the federal government’s HomeBuilder package came to a close, and for some industries, it was the lifeline they needed to stay afloat.

The HomeBuilder scheme was announced in June last year and was available to individual applicants who earned less than $125,000 or $200,000 for couples. 

Applicants could apply for a $25,000 grant until December 31 to build a new home or substantially renovate an existing home. The grant was reduced to $15,000 between December 31 and March 31.

A national dwelling price cap of $750,000 was applied for new home builds, including off-the-plan sales, and a renovation price range of $150,000 up to $750,000 applied to updating an existing home. 

As of April 9, the ACT had a total of 2843 applications of which 2176 were for new builds and 667 for renovations, government records show.

For JWLand project marketing manager Nick Babic, the HomeBuilder scheme served its purpose by “stimulating the construction industry during a period of economic uncertainty”.

During the nine months the scheme was in operation, JWLand received many inquiries for its SOL at Founders Lane apartment development in Braddon.

“[It delivered] strong sales results for the project, comparative to some of our other projects that were not eligible for the grant,” Mr Babic said.

“Buyers who were sitting on the fence or were putting off purchasing an apartment until later [but] became more proactive with the promise of $25,000 initially, and even later when it was reduced to $15,000.”

On the last day of the scheme, Mr Babic said three sales were made and exchanged on the same day “to ensure the buyers would qualify for the grant”.

Mr Babic said he hasn’t noticed a significant drop in buyers since the end of the package.

“If anything, the market seems to have stabilised. The end of HomeBuilder has also reduced urgency from prospective buyers,” he said.

“The biggest demographic we saw take up the HomeBuilder grant were first-home buyers, with at least 60 per cent of enquiries coming from this demographic. Approximately 70 per cent of sales at SOL during this time period were eligible for the HomeBuilder grant.”

Ante Vatavuk of Elliot Hardie Homes, a residential building company, said during the course of the scheme, business increased “two-fold”.

“We were inundated with inquiries throughout the entire program and had a number of buyers purchase house and land packages that were below the $750,000 threshold,” Mr Vatavuk said.

“However, it later became clear that there wasn’t enough land and house packages under that threshold. It was very limited in terms of what was available and everyone wants that single, detached home.”

Canberrans building a new home could face long delays as builders deal with the soaring demand from the HomeBuilder scheme, a shortage of building supplies and skilled tradesmen.

Housing Industry Association research, released in April, showed builders were having trouble starting or completing building projects on time with 82 per cent reporting delays.

This came after the federal government extended the construction commencement requirement from within six months to 18 months for all applications.

Now that the scheme ended, demand for new buildings hasn’t wavered.

“There is a lack of supply in the existing residential sales market so buyers are looking towards a new home so that demand is still there and I don’t think it’ll slow down while that problem exists,” Mr Vatavuk said.