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New dwelling consents surge ahead in Auckland but remain sluggish in the Bay of Plenty while the Waikato plays catch up

Property
New dwelling consents surge ahead in Auckland but remain sluggish in the Bay of Plenty while the Waikato plays catch up

The number of new homes being consented continues to show solid growth, with multi-unit developments such as apartments and town houses leading the way.

The latest figures from Statistics NZ show that 3406 new dwellings were consented throughout the country in October, up 16.4% compared to October last year.

In the 12 months to October 36,926 new dwellings were consented, up 12.2% compared to the previous 12 months.

That was made up of 4592 apartments (+19.7%), 2443 retirement village units (+28.9%), 7838 townhouses and home units (+24.9%), and 22,053 stand alone houses (+5.4%).

Those consents had a combined construction value of $13.7 billion, excluding land and some other non-construction costs, which was up 13.3% on the previous 12 months.

In addition, another $2 billion of residential alteration work was consented, taking the total value of all residential consents issued in the 12 months to October to $15.7 billion, up 11.1% on the previous 12 months.

A further $7.6 billion of non-residential building work, such as offices, shops, warehouses, hospitals and school buildings was consented in the 12 months to October, up 12.1% on the previous 12 months.

That took the total value of residentail and non-residential construction consented in the year to October to $23.3 billion, up 11.4% on the previous 12 months.

In Auckland 1361 new dwellings were consented in the month of October, up 26.4% compared to October last year, while 14,918 new dwellings were consented in the 12 months to October, up 14.1% on the previous 12 months.

In Wellington 2991 dwellings were consented in the year to October, up 12.5% on the previous 12 months. In Canterbury 5233 new dwellings were consented, up 12.8%. In Otago 2256 new dwellings were consented, up 10.4%.

Construction of new homes appears to be playing catch up in the Waikato, where 4193 new homes were consented in the 12 months to October, up 17.1% on the previous 12 months. However, that follows a 0.4% decline in the 12 months prior to that, and growth of just 0.5% in the 12 months prior to that.

And new dwelling construction remains sluggish in the Bay of Plenty, where 2140 new dwellings were consented in the year to October, up just 2.1% on the previous 12 months. That follows a 17.5% decline in the 12 months to October 2018, and growth of just 1.4% in the 12 months prior to that.

See the interactive chart below for the full regional trends.

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Building consents - residential

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#issued Nationally
#issued in Northland
#issued in Auckland
#issued in the Waikato
#issued in the Bay of Plenty
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#issued in Hawkes Bay
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# Nelson
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#issued in Canterbury
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# Southland

 

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38 Comments

Lots of apartments and multi-unit growth.
Houses, 5.4% up annually.
What is Auckland short of?
Meanwhile listings in Auckland falling: houses and townhouses now 5957 v 6104 3 weeks ago.
Bear in mind also that what is described as "house/townhouse" 20-25% of time is not. It is a plot of land with permission to build on it.
Listings are dropping already. This did not start last year until 11.12.18, and from a lot higher level.

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How much faith can we have in Statistics New Zealand???

The 2018 Census debacle is too fresh in my mind........

TTP

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Indeed. We can't trust them, which means we can pick and choose which stats to believe to best fit our preconceived notions of where house prices are going.

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LOL so stats only matter when they support your spruiker agenda? Top notch entertainment again from my fellow jester TTP

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Counting a pile of consents is a little simpler than trying to take a snapshot of 5 million people on one day.

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It shouldn't actually be that hard to account for everyone at any given time.
NZ has registered births, registered deaths, and excellent border control.
That is probably 99.9% of your in's and out's right there. Granted you don't get the additional demographic information. But even then most is available via Birth/death/immigration.

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It's more about getting them to complete the form rather than knowing how many "thems" there are.

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You must complete the form before you're allowed to pass the 'border' on the airport, unless you have a kiwi passport.

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I was referring to completion of the census form, no good knowing there a 5m people in NZ if only 1m complete the census forms.

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Doesn't matter, the IDI captures them.
IDI methods of identification will be far more accurate than a census count. Currently census is likely more accurate with demographic stuff, but it's only a matter of time before it is, essentially, redundant.

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These are compiled from the TLA's data.
So it's not really a case of Stats NZ, but whether you believe in the respective TLAs ability to count what they observe.

These aren't really 'estimates', as you imply.

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What's your take on the listings dropping? Vendors withdrawing from the market on the impression that higher prices will be achieved next year?

FWIW it does seem the lack of stock is helping to keep prices stubbornly high in Central Suburbs.

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Are people withdrawing listings or new listings not coming on at the same rate? Either way I guess it points house prices up? Shows a lack of motivated/stressed vendors.

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Listings are dropping and this started 4 weeks ahead of when it did in 2018.
Listings per day in Hibiscus Coast for Oct-Nov 2018 was 7.46. In 2019 it was 5.44.

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Let me quote Bindi from next month's REINZ report:
"The exceptionally warm and sunny Spring this year has resulted in slightly lower number of properties sold in November compared to last year."

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I thought it was cold and rainy weather that resulted in lower property sales?

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Anything can and will be used to explain anything, in the circle jerk that is property market "analysis".

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I am not aware of any formal commentary on this but an upbeat construction sector could be the predominant factor behind New Zealand outperforming its global peers in terms of economy.

An uptick in construction activity at this scale should have significant positive flow-on effects on most other economic sectors.

The falling share of standalone houses continues in total building consents is great news for long-term sustainability of the building sector and the broader economy as well.

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One of the things that would be really interesting is how our long term capacity in the construction sector is growing such that we can sustain higher activity at lower cost.

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NOT if you cannot sell them!!

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"Housing New Zealand has been granted consent to build 37 houses in the suburb of Maunu, on land it owns..." - Good
"Despite about 98 per cent of the 356 submitters being opposed to the subdivision" - That's a shame. But that's what happens when HNZ owns the land and everyone knows it - even if it is being used as a park in its current state, and they assumed it will never be developed,
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/117535141/housing-nz-developm…
Now, that land that Fletchers owns....

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Maunu is possibly one of the nicest middle-class suburbs to have been developed in NZ. Wonderful place.

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Auckland is on a roll!!!

Currently 15k and my guess is 18K by April 2020

@fritz, if according to your estimates that resources consents has dropped by 40% over the last 6 to 12 months, there is no way we could continue to have such high building consents..

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More consents, fewer sales: great combo for price fall from March 2020.
Auckland sales July-Sept, residential only, 2019: 4563 with apartments at 640
In 2018 the figures were: 5185 and 851 apartments.
In 2017 (atrocious year) 4962 and 801 apartments.

Given these figures, it is about time that writers stopped claiming that there is new life in (Auckland) housing market. Interest rates are falling, sales are falling and stock is rising. I wonder what that leads to??

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Residential only sales in Auckland July-Sept 2015: 8473
2019: 4563.
Would any of our landlords like to speculate on what caused that 46% drop?

In the 3m July, August, Sept 2012, 85% of residential sale were under $850k
In 2019 it was 47%

In Auckland City in those 3m of 2015 there were 1939 residential only sales.
In 2019 it was 966.
A 50% drop in sales? Were we not reliably informed, ad nauseam, that only 3% of sales in Auckland were to overseas buyers?? Then they revised it to 20% in Waitemata. Still a big gap to 50% isn't it...

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"Would any of our landlords like to speculate on what caused that 46% drop?" - Nah, according to our local landlords (spruikers) volumes are completely meaningless. NZ is difrunt, laws of economics don't apply here!

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"Would any of our landlords like to speculate on what caused that 46% drop?"

Tight buyers unwilling to pay market for houses. Buyers will cave eventually and pay a market price or keep paying us rent... A win either way;)

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Buyers are never forced to buy. Owners are sometimes forced to sell.
And there's also this minuscule, irrelevant factor called 'affordability'...

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Nah.
If Ashley Church doesn't understand WTP - why should anyone else have to?
School of hard knocks is all you need. House prices double every 7 years. Don't pay someone else's mortgage.
Anyone who thinks different has read too many books and not lived in the real world.

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Them thar buyers are cantankerous beasts, aren't they...but I'm sure one of them will cave any day now...

And at that time ( 2 years ago), listing agent ..... was talking a figure of "around $20 million"...the home has a 2017 RV of $12,750,000.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/houses/117817432/mayors-ritzy-…

So yes, it's all about the market price I guess...
(NB: As a wild guess, Sharon and Hubby bought Phil Rudd's old place. The new owners seem to fit the bill, given their appearance)

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I'll speculate that *part* of the reason for the 46% drop is less short term house flipping in 2019.

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Yes, and add foreign buyer ban, and also unaffordability reducing effective demand.

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People like Yvil hang on to prices though. Doesn't matter if prices are a lagging indicator in a falling market, the price on the day is the price and everything else is just noise.

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2020 is going to be interesting in the housing market. Remains to be seen how much demand there will be for all this places in the pipeline. We’re going to start to find out if the shortage is real.

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Indeed. Feels like an over build is here, but time will tell.

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Another reason not to bu*

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I will buy if it's the right place at the right price, but a million miles from desperation. Might look harder come winter

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Excuse me while I laugh thanks Fritz. Instead of waiting until next winter do you think your opportunity was last winter or didnt they teach you anything worthwhile in economics school.
"Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” 
Are you sure that you are not already looking actively and dont want to admit that??

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