Key takeaways
The time it takes to build new homes and apartments has significantly increased over the past 15 years.
The average build time for standalone houses has gone from 9 months to 12.7 months (a 40% increase), while apartment construction timelines have surged from 18.5 months to 33.3 months (an 80% jump).
These delays directly impact the housing market by limiting the number of homes that reach completion. This reduced supply inflates competition and housing prices, exacerbating Australia’s affordability crisis.
Higher prices and competition make it difficult for prospective buyers to enter the market. For renters, the situation becomes even more dire as more individuals are pushed into an already strained rental market due to a shortage of affordable homes.
Immediate reforms could prevent further increases in construction times, which are crucial for closing the gap between supply and demand. Without these changes, the housing crisis will worsen, and more Australians may find themselves priced out of homeownership.
It’s no secret that Australia is struggling to meet the housing demand, but there's a bigger underlying issue that many aren’t talking about: the extended time it takes to build a new home or apartment.
It's a slow-moving crisis, and data from the Master Builders Association highlights just how far behind we are in our ability to get homes built in a timely manner.
Why are our builds taking longer?
Looking back 15 years, the average build time for a standalone house was about nine months.
Fast forward to today, and it’s stretched to a whopping 12.7 months – a jump of over 40%!
And that’s just houses.
For apartments, the time from approval to completion has exploded from an average of 18.5 months to a staggering 33.3 months.
That’s nearly three years to bring a single apartment building to life, an 80% increase in timeline.
This blowout isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a direct factor worsening Australia’s housing shortage.
Every extra month added to the build process means fewer homes are hitting the market, pushing up demand and, inevitably, prices.
The factors slowing us down
With all of the advances in building technology, you would think we were building faster, not slower.
But according to Master Builders chief executive Denita Wawn, the reasons are complex and there are a few big culprits here.
Labour shortages, supply chain disruptions, union agreements, and a convoluted regulatory process all play a role.
Productivity, in fact, has fallen by 18% over the last decade, making the weight of an already strained industry heavier, says Wawn.
Besides that, bottlenecks in getting necessary certificates, complicated infrastructure requirements, and delays in final approvals—an industry bogged down by inefficiencies.
Most of these issues are not new, but they partly have been amplified in the last few years because Australia is feeling record-high demand for housing.
What this means for Australia’s housing market
These long build times mean that even when we have the approvals for new housing, those homes won't be ready for quite some time.
All this translates into higher prices and more competition for limited housing stock for those trying to make their way into the market.
The squeeze also gets tighter for renters because more people are forced into the rental market by not being able to find a homely abode at an affordable price.
This will leave us with the closing gap between demand and supply ever-widening, with further steepening of the affordability crisis. And as timelines stretch further, the price of housing will automatically scale up. Thus, it develops a vicious cycle, quite hard to get out of.
What needs to change?
And, quite rightly, Master Builders Australia is calling for reform.
They recommend a multi-faceted approach to bottlenecks, which will ease delays and reduce construction times.
Some of the solutions on the table include:
- Smoothening regulatory processes: Streamlining the process of approvals can save several months of bureaucratic zealousness. Builders, as it is, are caught up in a maze of regulations that delay things for no reason at all.
- Digital solution adoption: The construction industry can make use of advanced digital tools, like BIM or project management software, that will increase productivity and simplify the project timeline.
- Workforce growth: Australia needs skilled tradespeople and construction workers, and this shortage will not improve of its own accord. Offering incentives to attract local and international talent may be the key to solving this problem.
- Supply chain strengthening: Most of the delays in projects arise because of the lack of availability of material. A focus on a more robust domestic supply chain would reduce our dependence on international suppliers and hence minimize disruptions in the future.
Such an obvious need to increase the supply of housing indicates that the time for reform is now.
The path forward
Obviously, this issue isn’t going to be solved overnight, but with targeted reform and a focus on productivity, we can start to close the gap between housing demand and supply.
If we continue to ignore these problems, construction times will only continue to increase, and the housing crisis will deepen.
What’s clear is that we need a construction industry that can keep up with demand, one that’s streamlined, efficient, and ready to deliver homes within a realistic timeframe.
The clock is ticking – and the longer it takes to act, the more we risk leaving an entire generation priced out of the market.
