Australia’s largest home builders have been revealed.

At a recent industry breakfast hosted in Melbourne, Housing Industry Association unveiled its HIA-COLORBOND® steel® Housing 100 Report, which details the nation’s 100 largest builders according to the number of new commencements in 2021/22.

According to the report, Victorian detached home builder Metricon Homes retained its top spot despite easing back from 6,052 starts in 2020/21 to 5,969 (mostly detached) starts in 2021/22 spread across Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.

This was followed by Newcastle based detached home builder MJH Group (NXT Building Group) with 4,143 starts, Queensland apartment builder Hutchies (3,828 starts mostly in Qld)), Western Australia based detached home builder ABN Group (3,393 across WA and Vic) and Victorian based detached home builder AHB Group (2,937).

Whilst Metricon retains its top spot, recent times have been challenging for the builder.

Throughout this year, it been subject to reports about financial viability following the sudden death of its founder Mario Biasin earlier in the year. This is despite the company’s directors having injected $30 million into its business and a rescue deal being struck with the Commonwealth Bank.

In August, the company unceremoniously dumped 9 percent of its staff via a Teams Meeting.

Housing Industry Association Chief Economist Tim Reardon noted that the top 100 have been impacted by lower commencement numbers compared with 2020/21 and by rising construction costs – although these are now easing.

He said apartment builders are regaining momentum following a difficult period during the beginning of the pandemic.

“These results are against a market that has seen new home starts lower than the record set the previous year,” Reardon said.

“For this reason, two thirds of the builders in this year’s Housing 100 commenced fewer homes than in 2020/21. The market share of this largest 100 builders also shrank from 44 per cent to 36 per cent.

“The market in 2021/22 was dominated by the adverse impact of rising material prices caused by record levels of demand, supply chain constraints and labour shortages.

“The supply of building materials has improved significantly in recent months. Shipping costs are declining and the rise in building material costs on the ground is slowing. In some cases, prices have fallen. The cost of building will continue to increase in 2022/23, but at a slower rate than last year.

“A notable feature of the market in 2021/22 was the return of apartment builders. The loss of overseas migration saw the apartment market shrink rapidly at the start of the pandemic, but a return to work and study is seeing the apartment market recovering. A stabilisation in the cost of construction combined with an acute shortage of rental accommodation will continue to see a strengthening in the apartment market.

“The return of overseas students, tourists and migrants will see the number of multi-unit dwelling starts continue to recover the further we get away from the pandemic.”

Highlights from the report show that in 2021/22, the nation’s largest 100 homebuilders:

• Reduced their share of the new home building market from 44 per cent (all time high) in 2020/21 to 36 per cent in 2021/22.
• Accounted for 77 per cent of the detached homes built in Australia in 2021/22.
• Built 15.0 per cent fewer homes, from 88,215 home starts in 2020/21 to 74,973 in 2021/22.
• Built 4.0 per cent fewer detached houses compared to the previous year, 3 per cent more multi-units.
• Despite this fall in the number of homes, earned 8.8 per cent more revenue from home construction, up to $34.7 billion in 2021/22 due to the rise in the cost of construction.

The report was released at the Outlook breakfast hosted in Melbourne on September 21.

The event was hosted by HIA in conjunction with major partners Colorbond, ARC (The Australian Reinforcing company) and supporting partners Companion Systems and American Express.

The full report is available for purchase on the HIA website.

The report details the nation’s 100 largest builders according to the number of new commencements in 2021/22 including where their markets are found, what they build, their company profile and their contact/website details.

Enjoying Sourceable articles? Subscribe for Free and receive daily updates of all articles which are published on our site.

Want to grow your sales, reach more new clients and expand your client base across Australia’s design and construction sector?

 Advertise on Sourceable and have your business seen by the thousands of architects, engineers, builders/construction contractors, subcontractors/trade contractors, property developers and building industry suppliers who read our stories across the civil, commercial and residential construction sector.