Metricon Homes continues to lead the list of Australia’s largest 100 residential builders, as revealed by the HIA-COLORBOND steel Housing 100 Report for 2021/22 released last week. This is Metricon Homes’ seventh consecutive year at the top, according to HIA chief economist, Tim Reardon.

The Housing 100 Report ranks Australia’s largest 100 residential builders based on the number of homes commenced each year. The latest report reveals that there were fewer starts in 2021/22 compared with 2020/21, primarily caused by rising material prices and demand-supply gaps.

“Metricon Homes reported a total of 5,969 home starts, marginally lower than the 6,052 starts the previous year. These starts were across Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia,” Reardon said.

Notable among the top rankers is MJH Group (NXT Building Group), which has moved up from fourth in 2019/20 to second this year with 4,143 starts. Hutchies with 3,829 starts was the third largest home builder in Australia. The company was also the largest apartment builder last year.

ABN Group with 3,393 starts and the AHB Group with 2,973 starts rounded off the top five at fourth and fifth places respectively.

“These results are against a market that has seen new home starts lower than the record set the previous year. For this reason, two-thirds of the builders in this year’s Housing 100 commenced fewer homes than in 2020/21. The market share of the largest 100 builders also shrank from 44 per cent to 36 per cent,” Reardon notes.

“The market in 2021/22 was dominated by the adverse impact of rising material prices caused by record levels of demand, supply chain constraints and labour shortages.

“The supply of building materials has improved significantly in recent months. Shipping costs are declining and the rise in building material costs on the ground is slowing. In some cases, prices have fallen. The cost of building will continue to increase in 2022/23, but at a slower rate than last year,” he noted.

The return of apartment builders was a significant development in the 2021/22 residential property market. “The loss of overseas migration saw the apartment market shrink rapidly at the start of the pandemic, but a return to work and study is seeing the apartment market recovering. A stabilisation in the cost of construction combined with an acute shortage of rental accommodation will continue to see a strengthening in the apartment market,” Reardon says.

“The return of overseas students, tourists and migrants will see the number of multi-unit dwelling starts continue to recover the further we get away from the pandemic,” he concludes.

The HIA-COLORBOND steel Housing 100 Report 2021/22 shows that the largest 100 residential builders:

Reduced their share of the new home building market from 44 per cent (all time high) in 2020/21 to 36 per cent in 2021/22.
Accounted for 77 per cent of the detached homes built in Australia in 2021/22.
Built 15.0 per cent fewer homes, from 88,215 home starts in 2020/21 to 74,973 in 2021/22.
Built 4.0 per cent fewer detached houses compared to the previous year, 21.3 per cent more multi-units.
Despite this fall in the number of homes, earned 8.8 per cent more revenue from home construction, up to $34.7 billion in 2021/22 due to the rise in the cost of construction.

Image: iBuildnew

For a full copy of the report, go here.

Branko Miletic

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