The latest building and construction industry forecasts (July 2020) have made additional revisions to the previous industry forecasts released in April 2020 to consider the effects of Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 and the associated Stage 3 and 4 restrictions.

The escalation of COVID-19 in Victoria has meant a further downgrade to the previous forecasts for new home building. The imposition of the Stage 3 and 4 restrictions in Victoria will adversely affect key fundamentals like population growth and employment which will affect new home building activity in the short and medium term. It is hoped that stimulus measures like the HomeBuilder grant will mitigate some of this expected decline.

Commercial building activity will also be negatively affected by the lack of appetite within the private sector for large scale investment over the short and medium term. Sectors most affected will be accommodation, recreation, and travel-dependent projects. However, other areas of commercial building which have a strong public-sector component, like education and health, may strengthen.

The following tables and graph summarise the new revised forecasts and compares them to the February forecasts which were developed before the onset of COVID-19.