The number of new homes consented in the 12 months to the end of January reached a 44 year high, according to Statistics NZ.
Building consents were issued for 33,576 new homes in the 12 months to January, up 7.4% compared to the previous 12 months, reaching the highest number in any 12 month period since early 1975.
In the month of January 2496 new dwelling consents were issued, up 30.3% compared to January last year
Statistics NZ Construction Statistics Manager Melissa McKenzie said that when new dwelling consent issuance was at its peak in the 1970s, approximately 13 new homes were consented per 1000 New Zealanders each year. In the meantime the country's population had grown from around three million to almost five million, and the latest figures for the 12 months to the end of January showed just seven homes per 1000 people were being consented.
The lowest point was just three homes per 1000 people in 2011.
Stand alone houses still account for the majority of new homes, with 21,270 of them consented in the 12 months to January, although their growth was virtually flat at just 0.6% for the year.
The biggest growth came form townhouses, flats and units, with 6557 of them consented in the 12 months to June, which was up 32.7% on the previous 12 months.
There were also 3757 apartments consented (up 15.3%), and 1992 retirement village units (up 4.7%) for the year.
The growth in consents has been particularly strong in Auckland, where 1128 new homes were consented in January, up 57% compared to January last year.
Of the 13 Auckland Council wards, the highest number of consents was in the Waitemata Ward, which includes the CBD and nearby suburbs such as Parnell, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby and Herne Bay, where 153 new dwellings were consented in January.
That was followed by 136 in Manurewa-Papakura, 125 in Albany, 124 in Albert-Eden-Roskill and 100 in Rodney, with the rest spread among the other wards.
In other main centres, January's consent numbers were also up strongly compared to January last year in the Waikato +20%, Bay of Plenty +87%, Wellington +8.6% and Canterbury +7.5%, while Otago went against the trend with consent numbers there down 15% compared to January last year.
The following interactive graphs track the number of consents issued in all regions each month since February 2000, and the type of dwellings consented each month.
Building consents - residential
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Building consents - type
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35 Comments
Good to see more (presumably affordable) townhouses, flats and units being consented.
Agreed. Not a fan of Coro street but that concept is coming to a town near you.
I'm too good to live in one myself, but some cities have managed to do compact, high quality development along transit corridors with great success. Land and infrastructure in well-located parts of Auckland is never going to be cheap again, and I think this is the millenials' best bet at a foot in the door with a home in a desirable location.
I'm too good to live in one myself
Well someone has an inflated opinion of himself!
Good grief, I'm just kidding
Yeah, right.
Dont worry, he wont think hes so funny when Auckland is down 50% over the next 6 months.
Where has your namesake been? Awkward when the person you created your account in honour of stops posting comments for you to reply to...
Awkward when David had to quickly delete some of your earlier comments today….
You mean your comments?
You’ll find he deleted your comment and everything below it.
He probably found that comment you made about your wife too cringeworthy to bear. Cheers David.
That's terrible financial advice. Why are you trying to impoverish people?
What part of my comment do you disagree with? You don't think that this type of development is the millenials' best bet at a foot in the door with a home in a desirable Auckland location?
Of the 13 Auckland Council wards, the highest number of consents was in the Waitemata Ward, which includes the CBD and nearby suburbs such as Parnell, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby and Herne Bay, where 153 new dwellings were consented in January.
I doubt many of those are townhouses..
I think this type of thing is good -
Assuming the materials age gracefully that is rather nice,
Supply supplies, plenty of supply. :)
I really struggle to reconcile "building consents at 44 year high" when new developments struggle to sell and multiple construction companies go bust. The only reason to build new is if you could buy land and build on it cheaper than buying an existing equivalent home, in Auckland you cannot.
So can someone explain me why so many are wanting to build now?
New developments where? Out in the boonies like Hobsonville and Milldale, where they have been building 4 and 5 bedroom million dollar+ McMansions because thats all they could make a profit on? Not hard to understand why those are hard to sell when buyers have 1,2 &3 bedroom budgets and don't want an hour commute on a good day.
You really have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to me
wtf? Just because i was refuting your load of hogwash you think I give a toss about you as a person? Sorry, but you don't even make the top 100.
How does it feel? If I recall correctly, last time I called out your nonsense you had the audacity to call me a stalker!
And here we go again, you keep trying to make it personal. Hence the stalker tag.
… and you saying
"Sorry, but you don't even make the top 100"
is not making it personal? Hypocrite
Just a light hearted comment fo the weekend; "building consents at 44 year high", must be KiwiBuild ; )
Probably more truth to that than you think, don'r forget that while they haven't completed much yet, they have signed up for over 10k homes.
Also the state house replacement projects. Noticed a crappy looking state house with a 9m3 skip bin a couple doors down from one of the existing redevelopment sites on Richardson Road the other day, and a quick look at the map suggests it one of the stage 2 sites for Mt Roskill south development. Looks like 15 state houses being replaced with 77 new homes, a combination of State housing, kiwibuild and open-market homes.
Went past again today.. and there is a 9m3 skip bin outside the house next to it, so pretty confident they've relocated/evicted the occupants of those two houses and are preparing to remove/demolish them. Might detour down the backstreets and see if I can see signs of similar things on the properties that back onto those two.
Have fun down those backstreets Sherlock.
KiwiBuild houses mixed in with state housing is very nice on paper, but the reality is fraught. Kiwibuild units wont be easy to sell to start with, but one that shares a party-wall with a state house will be exceedingly difficult to shift. Could even be forced to sell them at below cost. Folks will say one thing publicly to maintain politically correct appearances, but when it comes time to put money on the line and make the biggest investment of their life, their not so politically correct intuition prevails. Have you ever seen a 100% state house street? Loud parties, rubbish all over the place, people yelling at all hours of the day, people coming and going all the time, two or three shabby cars for every occupant, shopping carts in the street. Even HLC was sure to split up the state, affordable and market housing in their Northcote redevelopment.
Yvil, given that 95% reach completion and with softening immigration, spare a moment and think what it might do to Landlords pricing power in the medium term....
According to greaterauckland.org, Auckland’s population increased by 38,000 people in 2018. 14,000 houses needed to accomodate them at 2.7 people per house. Building consents issued for 12,862 houses. According to Core Logic, only 70% of consents result in net additional dwellings. This would be net increase of about 9,000. 14,000 additional houses needed, but only 9000 delivered.
An anecdotal account, but from what I see in Wellington, all these new builds are cheap looking 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms in Churton Park with sale prices of $1mil. Build as many as you like, but they're useless. Too expensive, soulless, and not in the best area.
This seems bullish for prices
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