Master Builders Australia chief economist Shane Garrett says the month of October 2020 was the best month for new detached house approvals in almost 21 years.

A total of 10,936 new detached houses received building approvals during the month of October, the highest number for a month since February 2000.

“The numbers out today provide further proof that the HomeBuilder scheme is a huge success in supporting new home building at a very challenging time,” Shane says.

“Inward migration to Australia is the single biggest driver of demand for new home building and with permanent arrivals to the country at their lowest since WWII, government support for residential building has prevented activity from sinking to catastrophic levels.

“The weekend announcement of an extension to HomeBuilder is very welcome from this perspective as it means that the residential building industry can look forward to a decent pipeline of work for most of 2021.

“The strong linkage between residential building activity and the health of the rest of the economy in terms of jobs and small businesses means that the extension of HomeBuilder is good news for everyone.”