Consents for houses hit record high

Thursday, 30 September 2021

Consents were issued for a record number of homes in August, Stats NZ says.

Despite the country being in Covid-19 lockdown for half the month, consents were issued for 4490 homes, up from the previous record of 4310, which was hit in June.

Construction statistics manager Michael Heslop said it was also an annual record, with 46,453 homes consented in the year to August, up 24 per cent year-on-year.

“Auckland’s new home numbers rose 34 per cent in the latest year, including a 56 percent increase in the number of multi-unit homes consented compared with the year ended August 2020,” Heslop said.

**READ MORE:

* Council to reconsider options for mothballed subdivision as a building boom leads to a lack of land in Gore

* Auckland's new homes consented up 29%, Wellington's up 4% in a year: Stats NZ

* Record home consents highlight how housing is changing

**

Paul Barkle, an economist at Infometrics, said townhouses were dominating the growth. There were 1869 townhouses approved in August, 78 per cent higher than a year earlier and the most townhouses ever in a single month.

There were 21,164 multi-unit homes consented in the year ended August 2021, up 35 per cent from the previous August year. The number of new stand-alone houses rose 16 per cent in the latest year to 25,289.

In Auckland, there were 12,972 multi-unit homes and 6957 stand-alone houses consented in the year ended August 2021.

The seasonally adjusted number of new homes consented rose 3.8 per cent in August 2021, following a 2.2 per cent rise in July 2021.

“The trend for the number of new homes consented has been generally rising for almost three years,” Heslop said.

Barkle said the record was not surprising, “given current house price growth and the housing shortage highlighting the need for more housing”.

“Additionally, incentives from the government to encourage new builds are helping support consent growth. However, the industry faces major capacity constraints translating these building intentions into actual activity. Building cost pressures have been strong recently, with supply chain disruptions, difficulty sourcing materials, and an incredibly tight labour market.”

The Government this week revealed details of its plans to stop investors being able to claim home loan interest as an expense in their ta returns. It said there would be a 20-year exemption for new build properties.