There are many reasons Australia has a dwelling shortage and affordability problems – including the increased time it takes to build a new home.

In recent years, it typically took around nine months on average to build a house in Australia. Today it takes 13 months.

It’s worse for businesses which are constructing apartment complexes.

Recent analysis from Master Builders Australia has revealed that building times for detached homes and apartments have almost doubled – with a consequent impact on costs.

Master Builders says: “It shouldn’t take this long to build a home”.

These findings, obtained from recent analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, show that it took an average of 13 months to build a detached house in FY2024, marking a 40 per cent increase on the average compared to a decade ago.

Master Builders noted that construction times had lengthened even further for apartment buildings, with the average of 33 months from approval to completion in FY2024, representing an 80 per cent increase on the average of 18.5 months observed in FY2011.

That warrants repeating: it previously took a year and a half to get the average apartment building completed, but now it takes almost three years.

And that’s the national average situation: it’s considerably worse in some states.

You don’t need to be a financial genius to understand what that does to the costs of building new homes in Australia.

CEO of Master Builders Australia, Denita Wawn, says these extended construction time frames are hindering the industry’s ability to address housing demand and confront the housing crisis.

She says: “There are a range of contributing factors including labour shortages, declining productivity, union pattern agreements, supply chain disruptions, complex regulatory requirements, occupational certificate backlogs and critical infrastructure delays.” 

Wawn points out that, with the advancements which have occurred in technology and construction methods in recent years, “we should be building homes faster, not slower”.

Master Builders called for action to be taken to address the bottlenecks and inefficiencies around construction processes.

They suggest streamlining government approval processes, encouraging adoption of digital solutions, introducing incentives to grow the workforce through domestic and international means, and strengthening the domestic supply chain.

Master Builders chief economist Shane Garrett says that the latest ABS data on home completions indicate the country is on track to fall well short of the National Housing Accord target of 1.2 million homes by 2029 – indeed, by “over 400,000 homes”.