Eight homes built every day in Ballarat in March

A detailed breakdown released by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this week showed 250 new residences were approved in the local government area in March.

It exceeds the previous highest monthly total in recent years, which was posted just the month before in February. During those four weeks there were 239 new home builds signed off.

It is a clear indication development in Ballarat is continuing at a record pace, with the federal government's HomeBuilder grant stimulus prompting a building boom in the city.

While applications for the grant have now closed, many are hoping construction of their new homes will start within the deadline to obtain grant funding. The sum initially stood at up to $25,000 per property, falling to $15,000 in November.

Last month, the federal government announced it would extend the start date deadline for construction to 18 months after the application was lodged, with builders across the country struggling to carry out work in time.

Such is the rate of growth, builders are reporting pressures on the availability of tradesmen, while concerns are growing that demand for materials - particularly timber - will outstrip supply.

The trends reflect a wider boom across the state of Victoria, which again has shown the most rapid housing of all the states. In Victoria as a whole, there were 7,102 dwelling units approved, of which 4,541 were private sector houses - more than 2,000 more than in New South Wales. Growth in Geelong and Bendigo is also hitting record highs - up to 497 and 139 new homes for each local government area respectively.

Ballarat has also seen more public sector housing approved - with 35 new homes approved in March.

As in previous months, by far the majority of the homes in Ballarat are being built in the Alfredton and Delacombe statistical areas (SA2), both of which include the largest greenfield development sites on the outer fringes of the city.

There were 66 new residences approved in Alfredton in March, while the more southerly estates Delacombe showing the most rapid pace of construction with a total of 107 newbuilds given the green light in the area.

To put that into perspective, there were just 91 new homes approved in March 2020 across the entire city when consumer confidence took a sharp dip due to the evolving COVID-19 crisis.

The share of building approvals for Delacombe and Alfredton has hovered around the 70 per cent in recent years.

Other areas with significant growth included Ballarat North and Ballarat South, where there there were 15 and 18 new residences respectively in March.

In the same timeframe, there was one new dwelling approved for the SA2 comprising most of the CBD, bringing that area to 61 in total for the financial year so far.

There have now been 1,603 residential dwellings approved in Ballarat in the nine months of the financial year for which details are available so far.

It is already a record year by some margin, outpacing the rate of growth in 2018/19 when there were 1,300 buildings approved within 12 months - roughly the equivalent of three and a half new homes every day.

So far in 2020/21, there has been an average of almost six homes signed off daily.

With available land supply dwindling, work is being done to establish new growth zones to the north around Mount Rowan and west of the existing greenfield sites.

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