to the first decade of this century, but not as much as during the boom in apartment building in the second half of the 2010s. this is likely to still be enough to keep the housing stock growing faster than the population. solid rates of home - building have been encouraged by a range of public policy measures, including the low level of interest rates. also important has been the raft of subsidies and other incentives for home construction, as well as support for first home buyers during the pandemic. in combination, these subsidies have been quite sizeable in some cases ( graph 5 ). graph 5 maximum grants available * new home construction $ ’ 000 new south wales victoria % $ ’ 000 queensland western australia % h2 2020 homebuilder ( lhs ) first home owner grant ( lhs ) h2 2020 other * * ( lhs ) per cent of median housing price * * * ( rhs ) * subject to eligibility criteria including first - home - buyer status, income and property price caps. * * other includes regional bonuses in victoria and queensland, and the western australian building bonus grant. * * * median price of all new and established dwellings at the end of the reference period. sources : corelogic ; federal and state governments ; rba it is difficult to disentangle how much of the increase in demand for housing has reflected temporary subsidies and the current low level of mortgage rates versus the shift in preferences. however, it is clear that the time - limited nature of homebuilder and some other subsidies induced a temporary surge in building approvals for detached homes and renovations ( graph 6 ). we estimate that about one - quarter of building approvals during this period were supported by homebuilder, though many of these would have happened anyway. graph 6 private residential building approvals * monthly ’ 000 detached ’ 000 new dwellings higher - density $ b $ b alterations & additions 1. 0 1. 0 $ 25, 000 * * 0. 8 0. 8 0. 6 0. 4 0. 6 $ 15, 000 * * * * * 0. 4 smoothed lines are 13 - period henderson trends. grant value by phase of the homebuilder program. sources : abs ; rba even now, after eligibility for these subsidies has closed, these categories of building approvals have remained higher than immediately before the pandemic. this suggests that the extra demand induced by the subsidies wasn't entirely pulled forward from this year and next year, which would

speech housing in the endemic phase luci ellis [ * ] assistant governor ( economic ) keynote speech to the udia 2022 national congress sydney – 25 may 2022 i would like to thank udia for the opportunity to speak to you today. i'd originally been invited to the same congress two years ago, but the event was cancelled for obvious pandemic - related reasons. suffice to say, the talk i'm giving today is very different from the one i had written and planned to give in march 2020. two years of pandemic and ongoing recovery have profoundly affected every aspect of how we live and work, but few more so than our housing choices. in fact, things have changed so much on this front that the focus of my talk is almost solely the drivers of housing outcomes. there is that much to talk about! i won't have anything to add about monetary policy, beyond what has already been published in recent weeks in the governor's media conference, the statement on monetary policy, and the board minutes. and i'm not going to say much about the prices of established homes. rather, i plan to focus on some of the underlying drivers of housing demand, their likely persistence, and the capacity of the construction industry to meet that demand. the shift in space it is no surprise that the pandemic has changed how we think about our homes. there is nothing quite like being confined to your home for months on end to make you appreciate having a home that meets your needs, or rankle at one that does not. spurred by the experience of lockdown and self - isolation, many people understandably wanted a bit more space, and perhaps a garden. some also needed space where they could work, or perhaps just fewer flatmates to share that space with. this shift towards wanting more space has changed many people's living arrangements – the full extent to which will be revealed in the 2021 census results to be released from late june. until then, there are some intriguing and suggestive results from survey data, which show that average household size has fallen since the pandemic began ( graph 1 ). the share of group households declined in 2020 and has remained at this lower level. by contrast, while some young adults moved back in with their parents at the onset of the pandemic, that shift has since reversed. on the question of who you would rather be locked down with, at least some australians have voted with their removalists