Jen Melocco, Realestateview, Yorke Peninsula Country Times

Almost 100,000 homes have been knocked down during the past five years in Australia, with more expected in coming years.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 93,975 house demolitions were approved from March 2019 to March 2023.

New South Wales recorded the largest number of demolition approvals with 33,691 recorded from 2019 to 2023.

“Knockdown-rebuild currently accounts for one in four new homes built in Australia,” Housing Industry of Australia chief economist Tim Reardon said.

“As a share of the market they are going to be even stronger over the next years and we are seeing a rise in 2023 and 2024.

“What we’ve seen over the past 40 years is a consistent increase in demolition approvals, as we have had increasing density in our cities.”

More recent demolition numbers coming in, particularly in the past year, point to changes in the economic climate.

Over the past five years shown in these charts, housing demolition approvals reached a peak in June 2022, when local councils across the country approved a total 6628 houses to be knocked down.

In the same month NSW councils approved for 2914 houses to be pulled down and in Victoria in the same month it was signed off for 2248 houses to be bulldozed.

That peak came just one month before the Reserve Bank started increasing interest rates, and since then numbers of demolition approvals have continued to drop in line with housing starts overall.

Nationally the number of houses being demolished has dropped over the past year and now sits at 4636 house demolition approvals.

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 1 August 2023.