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Fewer apartments, stand alone houses and retirement village units were consented in February but more townhouses and home units

Property
Fewer apartments, stand alone houses and retirement village units were consented in February but more townhouses and home units

There was a slight drop in the number of building consents issued for new homes in February.

According to Statistics NZ, consents were issued for 3129 new dwellings in February, up from 3025 in January but down from 3285 (-4.7%) compared to February last year.

Compared to February last year the decline in consents was particularly severe for apartments -36.7% and retirement village units -31.4%, while consents for stand alone houses were down very slightly at -2.5% and consents for townhouses and units were up 6.4% (see the second interactive table below for the trends in building consents by type of dwelling).

However, on an annual basis, consents for new dwellings are still running higher, with 39,725 new dwelling consents issued in the 12 months to the end of February, up 4.9% compared to the previous 12 months.

All of that growth came from townhouses and units, which were up 37.7% in the 12 months to February compared to the previous 12 months, while consents for stand  alone houses were -2.0%, apartments were -11.7% and retirement village units were -20.4%.

The total value of building work consented for new dwellings was $1.229 billion in February, up marginally at +1.1% compared to February last year.

On top of that another another $197 million of residential structural alteration work was consented in February, which was up 18.3% compared to a year earlier.

The numbers varied widely around the regions, with new dwelling consents in Auckland up 14.9% in the 12 months to February compared to the previous 12 months, while consents in Wellington were down 10.7%, Canterbury was up 7.2% and Otago was down 17.6% (see the first interactive chart below for the full regional numbers).

On the commercial property front the value of non-residential construction work spiked sharply in February, rising to $599 million for the month, which was up 24.4% compared to February last year.

But on an annual basis, the value of non-residential construction work consented was down 2.7% in the 12 months to February compared to the previous 12 months.

The total value of all types of building work consented in February was $2.025 billion, up 8.7% compared to February last year.

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Building consents - residential

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Building consents - type

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48 Comments

A setback as far as resolving NZ's housing crisis is concerned.

TTP

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Still very high numbers if you would look at the historical series. You keep expecting ever-growing numbers which is a basic mistake.

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So great news then TTP? ;-P

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ϾϘϿ

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Careful, it could be a trend following the brilliant pass and own goal last week

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Can you, people live in a consent?

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Depends whether it's election time or not.

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It's a short month with a few public holidays. Less processing...?

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shortage of wood framing maybe lol

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Doh! I sold my forestry early last year. Can’t get it right all the time.

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I told you so!

New buyers in the market are now targeting townhouses and units as standalone houses are beginning to become out of reach especially to FHBs.

The rise and falls in building consents are positively dependant on the demand and prices- the higher the prices, the more builders are willing to build.

That said, smart FHBs ought be looking at freehold apartments as their starter property to avoid the competition. However, in lieu of Labour's new Brightline test, you will need to hang on to it for 10 years instead of 5 before upgrading to your next home.

Be quick before demand spill over and the opportunity may be lost. This may be your last chance!

https://ibb.co/YhsLZ8B

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What real estate agency do you work for?

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Which dole office is your case officer

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You're searching in the wrong place if you're after a beneficiary for one of your rentals!

I know they get the accommodation supplement, but surely you'd be better targeting someone with a real job wouldn't you?

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If i was searching for something it would definitely not be you

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When landlords were creaming it with massive tax free capital gains, tax deductions for interest only loans and massive Government subsidies in the form of accommodation supplements, I did not hear of any landlords reducing rent.
Now that they have to pay their fair share of tax, they are all bleating about putting up rents.
Surely they cannot have it both ways!

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Few will pay the extended capital gains tax just introduced that also covers your family home if you ever rent it out for a short period. They'll just hold houses for longer. Robertson and Cindy are still liars, the shine is coming off a bit. Watch for more extreme acts of desperation.

As for the tax on income not profit, that does not meet the definition of fair. Ask any business owner. Removing deductibility on an actual cost of doing business increases the cost of doing business. If costs increase, revenue has to increase, only one way to do that.

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The cheek of investors to bleat about 'fairness' after the economic and social costs they've unloaded onto the rest of the country.

The tax system treats developers, investors, owner occupiers entirely differently. Suddenly demanding like for like treatment is the antithesis of how our tax system works.

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Evading tax by pretending one did not buy for capital gains does not meet the definition of fair. Investors should be more honest (LOL).

This present removal of deductions is a poorer option than a CGT on all investment property, but at least it makes some headway into the unfair tax system with working folk bearing the brunt of the burden.

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No BL if the FHB lives in the freehold apartment.

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Sorry, what? The family home is not subject to the Brightline if you never use it for anything other than a family home. Never has been.

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This is data from a month ago. Jeezus.

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It's actually impressive how much complete bullshit you manage to fit into one post.

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Do you realise banks don't lend to FHB on little iddy biddy apartments?

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There is absolutely no way we can build our way out of this crisis without taking other measures as well. If we only focus on building we would need to build over 25 000 houses each year and it should be obvious how difficult that would be.

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Just close the borders and allow our falling fertility rate to do the rest.

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I agree reducing immigration will at least give us a chance to meet some of the demand.

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IO...as I think Basil Fawlty said, "stating the bleeding obvious".

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"we would need to build over 25 000 houses each year and it should be obvious how difficult that would be" - But.... we're building more than that already. Actually over 30000 new dwellings each year. Why would building less than that be difficult?

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CJ...30 000 new builds every year. Where did you get that from?

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https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/46-year-high-for-new-home-consents
This shows new build consents. Consent to completion ratio is above 95% if I remember correctly.

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does not account for removed or modified the true number is far below 30000

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I understand that, in building about 30,000 annually, we are aslo demolishing or removing up to 14,000 annually

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Well we've had many attempts to intervene without building more houses from a ban on foreign buyers to the recent tax changes. In fact the high level or reluctancy to allow more house building seems to have motivated government to try every other approach.

We do need to give these measures a year or two to really understand what their cumulative impact will be, if any, and allow the border situation to normalise. Right now we have tens of thousands of people freshly issued visas who cannot penetrate our border system but upon reopening there will be some equilibration required. That means no meaningful analysis can be done about where house prices should be because the market is severely demand-constrained currently. If I had to guess border reopening will mark the start of a new surge in rents and then buyer demand.

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Whew, Jacinta fixed the housing crisis just in time. When is she going to do something about those pesky stickers on apples now that landlords are sorted?

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Jacinda has just announced plans to announce a policy to remove apple stickers. Aroha. Kia Kaha. Be Kind. ♥♥♥

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Should make'm out of casein, i am sure i have eaten dozens of them.

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“ According to Statistics NZ, consents were issued for 3129 new dwellings in February, up from 3025 in January but down from 3285 (-4.7%) compared to February last year.”

So consents for Feb21 are up on Jan21 which is what the article should focus on.

Consents in Feb21 are lower vs Feb20. Isn’t that because Feb21 had a Level 3 lockdown while Feb20 didn’t have covid yet? I feel like this is basic info that people are missing? Intentionally maybe?

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What with all the building going on, investor interest waning, struggling over-ponzified investors in danger of selling off, net migration at a trickle. Possible factor of ghost house sell off. In this small country supply vs demand could tip in a buyers favour quite easily. Demand levels for 1/4 acre sections could trigger sale of ghost homes

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Migration maybe a trickle for many years which is a very good thing for NZ to catch up.
Bond market is going upward so interest rates will increase at some point. RBNZ will try to hold it back this year but it will be going up.
Country is scared of COVID along with OZ. Vac is not fall proof. At some point they will have to relax entry if they want mass migration. (dont think they want to make that call as it will mean deaths)
Gov need to tax the ghost houses.

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Net migration is not at a trickle. Border movements are down every month for 12 months, for a total of negative 124k. The biggest surge was in March 2020 with a negative 63k

Also:
1100 extra people left the country in Feb. (Currently 2k net loss for March).
2300 First Home Buyers made purchases in Feb (RBNZ C31 E2)
3748 Investors took out lending in Feb (RBNZ C31 E4) at an average of $315k
And we're still building houses.

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nzdan..
Where do u get ur net migration figures.
My understanding is that the numbers are still positive..??
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/new-zealand-citizens-drive-net-migration…
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-net-migration-down-in-2020

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Correct, in the period covered in these numbers we built +1000K new homes each month, which means we are building at a much larger pace than people are arriving to the country (net gain of only 5700), improving supply significantly.

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Customs Air Passenger arrivals vs departures stats. They provide a daily number of arrivals vs departures and then tally up the total. The overall departure number is up 124k on arrivals since March 2020.

https://www.customs.govt.nz/covid-19/more-information/passenger-arrival…

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Govt afraid to open border, as they knew how basically crumbling the Health sector in NZ, already being eroded by selfish protected 'Wealth creation'. So? close border=security measure NEVER 'health' at all. As real Health coping capacity, everyone knows.. simply it's just not there.
It is a time for most NZ essential workers, to bind together and launch their massive roll over work strike, a good measure? at least 12wks minimum, start from the rubbish collectors, MIQ workers, supermarket staff, cleaners, teachers, police, engineer, tradies, rail/truck driver, maintenance workers, farmer, then pharmacist, nurses, doctors, OT, Physio.. ouh uh don't forget the dentist.. brrruggh.

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Huh?

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I've noticed Pusheen is quite a quirky poster. Usually up in the early hours, posting drunk and English is a second language I suspect going off the bizarre idioms.

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Like my nursery rhyme, best read in the of Suzy Cato

Pumpy Dumpy sat on a Wall
Pumpy Dumpy had a Great Fall
All the Queen's economists, and all the Queen's men
Couldn't put Pumpy together again

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