ALBURY-WODONGA’S home construction market remains stable despite the winter weather’s impact on building schedules.
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The national industry expanded during July although the pace of growth had slowed, according to research put out by the Housing Industry Association and the Australian Industry Group. Master Builders Association Murray division president Dale Paddle broadly agreed with the assessment contained in the Australian Performance of Construction Index.
“Certainly there’s lot of investors around and second, third, fourth home buyers are still in the market at a reasonable level, it’s been steady,” he said. “This has been the wettest winter we’ve had for 20 years, so it certainly seems to have an effect on the amount of people going through the displays.”
“I think 26 days out of the month (of July) were raining, so it’s pretty hard to do site cuts and get slabs in.”
Mr Paddle, of Cavalier Homes, said Thurgoona and estates such as White Box Rise in Wodonga and Killara’s Riverside continued to be popular locations for new homes.
Housing Industry Association senior economist Shane Garrett said the evidence of the weather’s impact on the July results was anecdotal.
“People have said that it has impeded things a little bit,” Mr Garrett said.
“But the overall figures that we’re getting are still pretty positive.”
Further statistics on July’s building approvals and housing finance were due in a few weeks.
“They may end up capturing some of the impact of the weather, if there is any impact,” Mr Garrett said.
The senior economist said the slowing of growth followed a peak year.
“It looks like the '15-16 financial year will achieve very, very unprecedented results in terms of the output of new home building,” he said.
“We’re probably looking at over 230,000 new starts for the ‘15-16 financial year once we get the final figures.
“So it’s altogether likely that activity will ease back towards more sustainable levels over the coming years.”