The Federal Government HomeBuilder Program has been a run away success securing construction jobs during the pandemic induced recession and now underpinning our recovery from it.

This year is set to see the largest number of house commencements in Australian history, with all States and Territories seeing a boost with the support of HomeBuilder.

The HomeBuilder scheme has had its strongest take up in SA – giving tradies more work than they’ve had in a long time.  A total of 13,913 grants, each worth $25,000, have been handed out in SA.

The latest ABS construction figures show that renovation work was the highest on record in the March quarter.

This pipeline of work will keep tradies in jobs and the sector active throughout 2022.

Member for Barker, Tony Pasin said the HomeBuilder program played a key role in supporting the housing industry, the timber industry of the South east and the economy more broadly during the height of the pandemic.

“These results speak for themselves. HomeBuilder not only saved construction jobs during the worst of the COVID-19 recession, it has helped underpin Australia’s strong economic recovery,” Mr Pasin said.

“The combination of factors that have led to this boom is unprecedented and are driven by HomeBuilder and low interest rates as well as a change in consumer preference away from high density areas,” Mr Pasin said.

The housing starts that the HomeBuilder Program has generated will ensure that the residential construction industry remains buoyant throughout the rest of 2022.

Blue Lake Homes, Jacinta Jones, said the Homebuilder scheme has had an incredible impact to Blue Lake Homes business enabling clients to be able to get into their own home many years before they would have been able to if they had to save $25,000.

“HomeBuilder has also allowed those that have sold their house to be able to build straight away rather than waiting and in many case build larger homes with their additional funds.” Ms Jones said.

“The flow on effect of this will be seen in our community for some time now that the commencements time frame has been extended with trades, suppliers and businesses benefiting from the increased volume of houses being built. This has a ripple effect in creating confidence and spending on our community.” Ms Jones said.

“In the 30 years that Blue Lake Homes have been in business this is the first time we have seen this grant amount available for our clients and it has certainly seen our client number increase over the last six months.” Ms Jones said.

ENDS