What’s stopping new home construction?

Friday 4 April 2025

This week, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) released data on new house sales, which continued to disappoint.

As illustrated below, the number of private new home sales fell by 0.6% in February and has shown little movement in two and a half years.

Moreover, as shown by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro below, new house sales are tracking at historically low levels, threatening the federal government’s target of building 1.2 million homes over five years.

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.