Is Housing Reaching The Summit?

"New home building may well have reached the summit with a record 212,000 dwelling commencements in 2014/2015," said HIA Chief Economist, Dr Harley Dale.

"A key message in the

Spring 2015 Housing Industry Association National Outlook - the most comprehensive quarterly review of Australia's residential building industry - is that 2015/16 will be another very healthy year for commencements. A peak in new home construction is usually followed by an abrupt decline," Dr Dale said.

"Renovations investment is forecast to grow by 3.7 per cent in 2015/16 following marginal growth - from a decade low - over the last two years.

"Meanwhile the rate of growth in residential property prices has peaked, in our assessment, although for the roughly 60 per cent of the population living outside Sydney and Melbourne this has hardly been a housing boom.

"As the focus - quite rightly - intensifies on the need for economic and taxation reform in Australia it is imperative that policy makers recognise the importance of the residential construction industry.""Residential construction is the second most heavily taxed industry in the Australian economy, to the detriment of the home ownership aspirations of many Australians," he said. "Independent research undertaken over a number of years demonstrates the inefficiency of much of this taxation and the large gains to productivity and Australian living standards from reducing this onerous cost impost on new housing."