How Long Does It Takes To Build A House? Construction Times Are At A 10-year High

The average time it takes to build a new house in Australia has risen to its highest level in more than a decade, according to peak industry body Master Builders Australia. Average building times have blown out from 8.7 months in 2020-21 to 11.7 months in 2022-23 amid labour shortages, higher costs of materials, and a slew of building companies going bust.

The average length of time between approval and completion of townhouses has also expanded from 12.7 months in 2020-21 to 14.9 months today. Apartment building times hit a record high of 30.6 months in 2020-21 but this has now moderated to 28.8 months. Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn said this was still far too long. “When our output of new apartments was at record levels back in 2015-16, it took just 21 months to complete a build,” she said.

The cost of building materials initially rose in the period immediately after COVID, with shipping costs exploding and then global inflation pushing prices even further. “Since the pandemic, building product prices have increased 33 percent,” Ms Wawn said. “While we are seeing a stabilisation of some building product prices primarily around steel, some products such as cement continue to escalate.”

Rising costs are a key reason why many small building companies have become insolvent. The fixed-price contracts they signed with some homeowners prior to the materials pricing surge meant many builders were forced to complete projects at a loss or on a very small margin.

But Ms Wawn said the industry’s challenges go far beyond temporary COVID-related impacts with a “formidable set of impediments in the form of planning delays, insufficient land release and red tape”. As a result, housing construction has not kept pace with Australia’s traditionally strong population growth, leading to a critical point today. Master Builders forecasts that new home starts will decline by 2.1 percent to about 170,100 in 2023-24, which it says is well below the 200,000 needed per year to meet population growth. Nerida Conisbee, the chief economist at Ray White, said the population rose by 500,000 people in 2022, which meant 200,000 new homes were needed but only 172,000 were built.

Amid surprisingly strong property price growth in 2023 and a national rental crisis, the Federal Government has set a target of building 1.2 million homes over five years from 2024. However, many industry insiders question how this is going to get done. Ms Conisbee said the closest Australia has ever gone to building 1.2 million homes over five years was in 2015-20 when 1.05 million homes were built.

“This was a period in which we saw the biggest influx of Chinese capital ever recorded and there were thousands of apartments built across our CBDs and close to universities,” Ms Conisbee said. “The Chinese capital has mostly evaporated and there is nothing as significant to replace it. Ultimately, most of the money will come from households, whether in the form of people buying homes to live in or to invest in. The problem right now is high interest rates are preventing many from being able to buy new homes. Monetary policy is choking housing supply.”

Additionally, Ms Conisbee said an entrenched NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude makes it tough for local councils to approve medium to high-density projects. “There continues to be a resistance to densities in our suburbs and this makes it difficult for town planners to get projects approved,” Ms Conisbee said. “Fortunately this is one area that the Government can more easily control and we have seen the announcement of many rezonings across Australia in recent months.”

For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.

The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.

“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.

That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.

Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.

The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.

“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”

Collecting instead of decorating

Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.

Collecting is less conclusive.

A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.

That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.

A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.

The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.

For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.

Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.

A design perspective shaped by travel

International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.

Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.

More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.

“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”

Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.

Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.

A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.

The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.

Designing the complete experience

FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.

The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.

That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.

Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.

The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.

Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.

The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.

A home that can keep changing

The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.

Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.

“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”

That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.

The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.

This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.

Fact box

Designer: Jack Freeman

Role: Founder and managing director

Practice: FREEMAN & CO

Base: Australia, with international projects

Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean

Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts

Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation

Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials

Website: free-man.co

How Long Does It Takes To Build A House? Construction Times Are At A 10-year High

High building materials costs and a labour shortage have combined to worsen Australia’s chronic housing undersupply

Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.