A Record Year Of House Building
Australia is poised to set a new record for detached homebuilding in 2020/21.
By Terry Christodoulou
Thu, May 20, 2021 4:24pm
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According to economists at the Housing Institute of Australia (HIA), a record number of detached housing starts will occur in the 12 months to September 2021.
“More than 146,000 detached houses commencing construction. This is more than 20 per cent higher than the peak of the previous boom in 2018,” stated HIA Economist, Angela Lillicrap.
This forecast is contained in HIA’s economic and industry Outlook Report. The State and National Outlook Reports include updated forecasts for new home building and renovations activity for Australia and each of the eight states and territories.
“This large volume of work will ensure that the industry remains very active through until at least the second half of 2022,” added Ms Lillicrap.
Ms Lillicrap cites a number of factors driving the level of activity, namely, the HomeBuilder scheme and low-interest rates, as well as consumer preferences shifting away from high-density areas.
“The extension of HomeBuilder’s commencement deadline will help limit the impact of constraints imposed by land, labour and materials and ensure the elevated volume of detached homes will be sustained for longer.”
However, the increase in building is not something that is shared between the detached and multi-unit sector, the latter expecting a decline in 2020/21.
“The timing and speed of a recovery in overseas migration will have a significant impact on these forecasts.
The return to stable and certain population growth is central to stable economic growth,” concluded Ms Lillicrap.
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A five-bedroom Palo Alto home designed by Steven Ehrlich is listed for $44 million, making it the city’s most expensive listing. Built around a dramatic concrete spine, the home features four courtyards and a pool.
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For years, tech entrepreneur Asher Waldfogel and his wife, Helyn MacLean, dreamed of building a modern house in Palo Alto, Calif.
The couple, however, worried about clashing with the Mediterranean-style architecture typically associated with their neighborhood of Old Palo Alto.
So they tapped architect Steven Ehrlich to create a design that paid homage to its surroundings with stucco, mahogany and titanium zinc cladding. They spent $20 million over several years building the house, completed in 2005.
Now looking to be closer to their adult daughter on the East Coast, they are putting the five-bedroom home on the market for $44 million—the most expensive listing in Palo Alto.
Waldfogel is an angel investor who co-founded Redback Networks, a telecommunications-equipment company. MacLean previously had a career in fundraising.
The couple purchased the roughly 0.4-acre site for $7.1 million in 2000 and demolished a circa-1930s Spanish Colonial home. The house they built pinwheels around a central staircase. It has 7,900 square feet of livable space, with four distinct courtyards and a pool.
A key feature of the home is a cast-in-place concrete wall, or spine, that is two stories high and about 80 feet long. “There’s a little bit of controlled chaos in what comes out of the form,” unlike a perfectly uniform surface, Waldfogel said. “If you want that, you do it in plastic.”
Waldfogel said he and his wife are thinking about the next phase of life now that their daughter is grown, although they have not decided where they will move. They also have a home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“Right now we’re just trying to emotionally let go and decide what to do next,” he said.
Palo Alto, an epicenter of venture capital and tech startups in Silicon Valley, is home to some of the country’s biggest tech titans. Sales volume and prices are rising, with a median sale price of $3.5 million for the three months ending in August, up 5.8% year-over-year, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin.
Arthur Sharif of Sotheby’s International Realty—San Francisco Brokerage has the listing.
