For the extended grant, contracts must be signed between 1 January and 31 March 2021, but applications can now be submitted up until 14 April 2021 inclusive.
The property price caps for new builds to receive the grant have also been raised in New South Wales and Victoria, to $950,000 and $850,000 respectively.
It remains at $750,000 for other states.
The construction commencement deadline is now also six months for all eligible contracts signed on or after 4 June 2020, having previously stood at three months.
The Government has budgeted an extra 15,000 homes for the extra scheme, adding to the 27,000 spots already budgeted for, which cost approximately $688 million, bringing the total cost of the scheme to about $913 million.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison said HomeBuilder drives demand in the construction sector.
“It’s critical we keep the momentum up for Australia’s economic recovery," he said.
“Extending HomeBuilder will mean a steady pipeline of construction activity to keep tradies on the tools.”
Shadow Housing Minister Jason Clare said the HomeBuilder money would have been better spent on social housing.
"The Morrison spin machine says they are extending the HomeBuilder Scheme because it has been so successful. The fact is they have to extend it because the original scheme was too small and was badly designed," he said.
According to Housing Minister Michael Sukkar, HomeBuilder's grant reduction and price cap rise was done in consultation with the construction sector and with market conditions in mind.
Mr Sukkar also said the most recent data from 20 November showed HomeBuilder had 23,877 applications - a remarkable turnaround given as of 9 October it had only 11,000 applications.
Applications are subject to revisions from the states and territories, and have not been assessed for eligibility.
Judging the success of HomeBuilder
Housing Industry Australia (HIA) managing director Graham Wolfe said HomeBuilder was "incredibly successful".
“HomeBuilder has exceeded industry’s expectations for both new home projects and renovation work. HomeBuilder has generated jobs in construction, manufacturing and retail, supported Australians to take up home ownership and will continue to underpin the Australian economy in 2021 and beyond,” he said.
Master Builders Australia (MBA) CEO Denita Wawn said HomeBuilder provides Australians a "leg up".
“Extending HomeBuilder is a giant leap forward towards economic recovery. It will generate billions in economic activity, help save thousands of builder and tradie businesses from going under and protect thousands more jobs in the building supply chain,” she said.
Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA) data from earlier in November indicated insolvencies in construction, mining, and retail spiked 38%.
The latest fortnightly data also indicated insolvencies were up 6.25% in the construction sector, while in late October bankruptcies across all sectors were up 16% as mortgage deferrals and the JobKeeper rate were wound back.
Construction data released last week showed that while the industry was down 2% overall, the value of new private builds and renovations were up 1% and 4.56% respectively.
Mr Clare also pointed to some additional statistics.
"Last financial year 170,000 homes were built across Australia. This financial year the [HIA] predict as few as 150,000 homes will now be built and Treasury currently predicts 140,000 homes will be built," he said.
"According to work done by [MBA], this extension of the Scheme will only increase the number of homes built this financial year by up to 1,569."
Data from quotes platform Buildxact also revealed that the volume of quotes was up in the September quarter, but the win rate was down to 13.65%.
In the 2018-2019 financial year, MBA donated $39,600 to political parties - $23,100 to the Australian Labor Party across two transactions, and $16,500 to the WA Liberal Party also across two transactions.
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