There was a decline in the number of new homes completed in Auckland in September, although numbers remain well up compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Auckland Council issued 1034 Code Compliance Certificates (CCCs) for new dwellings in September, down from 1320 (-21.7%) in August.
That was the lowest number of new dwelling completions in any month since April this year, although it remained up by 14% on the 909 new dwellings completed in Auckland in September 2019, before the Covid pandemic disrupted the construction industry.
However the monthly figures in Auckland can be volatile because of the high number of multi-unit projects such as apartments being built in the city, but even allowing for that, new home completions in the region have been tracking slightly lower since April this year.
Using a rolling monthly average over 12 months suggests new home completions peaked at just over 1200 a month in June last year and have since declined by about 8% to just over 1100 in September this year, which means on average about 100 fewer homes are being completed each month compared to last year's peak.
There was also an improvement in the length of time it took to complete projects in September.
Prior to the pandemic disruptions hitting the construction sector it was common for more than 90% of projects to have received their CCCs, which are issued by the council when a dwelling is completed, within two years of having received their building consents.
That time frame has stretched out over the last three years as supply chain disruptions, lockdowns and other pandemic-related events took their toll, which meant many projects took longer to complete.
Last year the number of new dwellings that received their CCC within two years of receiving their building consent bottomed out at 57% and by August this year it was back up to 75%.
In September this year 82% of the new dwellings completed in Auckland received their CCC within two years of being issued with a building consent, suggesting build times are starting to come back down and supply pressures may be starting to ease.
However there's still a way to go before they get back to pre-pandemic levels.
A more detailed analysis of building consent trends in Auckland and other regions, including data on estimated building costs, is available on our Residential Building Consent Analysis page.
The comment stream on this story is now closed.
- You can have articles like this delivered directly to your inbox via our free Property Newsletter. We send it out 3-5 times a week with all of our property-related news, including auction results, interest rate movements and market commentary and analysis. To start receiving them, register here (it's free) and when approved you can select any of our free email newsletters.
21 Comments
Likely to be no more than 700-800 per month come this time next year.
Do we need so many of them build anyway?
Seems like everyone of us want to live in two houses at the same time.
And have anyone checked how many are just empty? Any statistics?
An empty house doesn't mean an available house. The only stats I've seen on "empty houses" came from the census, which really only counts houses that were empty on census night. I'm sure some extrapolation can be done, but I wouldn't think you could conclude from that data which were empty long term.
No. I don't believe NZ really had a real housing shortage. Just a lack of houses on the market that were avaliable to buy or rent. One of NZs property experts also said that he didn't think NZ had a housing shortage. We can create a housing shortage by increasing immigration.
I thought we already had 60,000 surplus houses ?
Keep em coming I say.
They're obviously still priced far too high for many critical workers such as nurses, teachers, police officers and the like. So yes, keep them coming. Prices need to come down a long way, just as was provided for generations who entered the workforce 30+ years ago.
The house I recently sold in Glendowie was built i think in the 50's, single square box state style, but done privately, back then you could help build them yourself (it showed sometimes when doing repairs) then it had an early 90's addition, again in a time of austerity , many choices where suboptimal...
My point being you could build your own, nowdays building is a project management role of subbies, slab, electrical, plumbing, framing then roofing. each task is very specialised, often requiring certifications etc . 15% of new build costs are GST, another 15% is council developer fees in subdivision of land etc.
Add it all up and bearacracy and taxs / fees have moved the build price out of lower salary reaches.
You can see this now with the tiny house movement.
Yes, good points. In those days too one didn't have to have the fencing, landscaping or driveway done. Those were often done later. Fewer silly covenants on land too.
Unfortunately over-regulation has been a response to the building sector's abysmal behaviour in recent decades and the weakness of law to hold it accountable and responsible for the quality of products and services provided. So councils have been forced to try to protect ratepayers and taxpayers from all the different ways in which the sector might sell shoddy, costly trash.
At some point, perhaps, financial pressure might force simplification around simple solutions such as those from the 1950s. Simple boxes with wide eaves etc.
When I bought in 2011 there was only a front fence no side ones, kids used to play cricket across three sites.... now it's all 4-5 million houses, infinity lawns etc. Was a nice site, all land value, the perfect specualtion back in 2011.
The more houses built the better….
Additional houses exert downward price pressure. 😁
TTP
P.S. Agree with Rick above. The construction industry has much to answer for. Every apprentice should be required to pass a rigorous assessment in best practice ETHICS.
It is called the ITM fishing show for a reason TTP
‘ETHICS’
lol
Having watched carpenters operate on and off for a couple of decades now, there's definitely a generational shift in approach.
Older carpenters could smash out decent quality results in short timeframes. Procedural work, with some level of understanding of what the final result needed to be.
These days it's scratch your head for a while working out what you're supposed to be doing, take forever to accomplish rudimentary tasks, and pat yourself on the back for what would previously have been rejectable quality.
Will this scenario reverse? I'm not holding my breath.
Saw Max Key is about to give a free webinar to potential first homebuyers…those cookie cutter houses he fronts must be struggling to sell.
Be Quick, when is HPI due out?
Second week in the month, so soonest could be today, but maybe early next week. Can’t wait.
Starting to get harder to spin aye TTP.... in fact it's so hard to spin they are using
the old trick of selling hope that there will be a spring / summer / next winter bounce....... yeah nah.
Then they distract from price falls and report on numbers at open homes auctions etc..... and how marginally better number of onlookers at the plane crash is somehow going to magically change into buyers, all as the OCR keeps marching 50bps higher each meeting of the RBNZ. They are reaching desperation as commision flows evaporate. We may see forced house and property sales from realestate agents being the first forced sellors as in other places the labour market is holding up and there are open positions everywhere.
Perhaps Labour has a secret plan on hopw to fill the 1000 missing bus drivers.... with TTP's peers.
Seems like TTP is the last Spruiker standing!
if there’s one thing about Tim that is admirable it is his persistence….
Max gives each lucky buyer 50 social credit points with the CCP.
Funny how a staunch capitalist can be so enamoured with communists
Higher interest rates and falling asset values = less construction. This is how you 'tame inflation' dummies.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.