HomeBuilder workhorse of economic recovery

The success of the Federal Government’s HomeBuilder grants program demonstrates the power of residential construction in supporting jobs and driving economic activity.

According to new figures from Treasury, more than 75,000 households have applied for the HomeBuilder grant with around 80 per cent of these for new construction.

“HomeBuilder has been the workhorse of Australia’s recovery from the impact of COVID-19, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs, generating tens of billions of dollars in economic activity and helping more Australians into their home,” said Ken Morrison, Property Council Chief Executive.

“Significantly, we are seeing record numbers of first home buyers coming into the market, assisted by HomeBuilder and the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.

“HomeBuilder has kept the residential construction sector going strongly at a time when we were looking at a significant fall-off in new building activity even before the impact of COVID-19,” Mr Morrison said.

“It has been an extremely powerful and effective stimulus lever, delivering important economic and social benefit at a critical time for the economy,” Mr Morrison said.

“Importantly, the Government has also taken steps to optimise the benefit of the scheme by making the necessary adjustments along way to ensure HomeBuilder delivered the very strong results we are now seeing.

“The new home building activity supported by Home Builder which will flow into the economy for many months to come,” Mr Morrison said.

The Property Council has welcomed the extension of HomeBuilder to the end of March at the reduced rate of $15,000.