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Worst December in three years for the number of new dwelling completions in Auckland

Property
Worst December in three years for the number of new dwelling completions in Auckland

There was a sharp decline in the number of new homes completed in Auckland in December.

Auckland Council issued 830 Code Compliance Certificates (CCCs) for new dwellings in December, which was the lowest number for the month of December since 2017.

CCCs are issued when a building is completed and it is normal for their numbers to decline in December, which is affected by the Christmas break.

Last year's December decline was particularly steep, dropping by 48% from the 1581 dwellings completed in November 2020.

However the decline in December does not necessarily herald a slow down in new housing completions in Auckland.

The number of CCCs being issued had been running at particularly high levels in the second half of last year and the monthly figures can be quite volatile and are often affected by the timing of large multi-unit developments such as apartment blocks being completed.

Auckland Council's CCC figures go back to 2013 and they show that on an annual basis 12,040 new dwellings were completed in 2020, which was up 15.4% compared to 2019 and the highest number in any calendar year since 2013.

On average just over 1000 new homes a month are now being completed in Auckland, up from 869 a month at the end of 2019.

Five years ago, the average number of new homes being completed each month was just 303, which means new home completions in Auckland have more than trebled over the last five years. 

The chart below shows the number of CCCs issued by Auckland Council for new dwellings each month from December 2017 to December 2020.

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55 Comments

New houses don't matter, as long as existing houses keep selling the total value of the housing economy is still making 'NZ' very 'wealthy'.

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I think you were missing quotation marks around 'wealthy'.

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I think the quotation mark should be around NZ.

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My apologies, have corrected accordingly

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I thought the quote marks should go around "value". :-)

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May be some disruption because of lock-downs, otherwise it is party time sponsored by Jacinda Arden and Co Sponsered by Mr Orr.

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Having been a developer in Auckland for many years, the real problem lies with the disturbing amount of red tape and incompetence within local government. And the talk and inaction continues over the RMA.
There is little joy in working with the Auckland Council.

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Our whole economy is based on higher and higher house prices. No NZ Government will do anything to address high house prices.

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To think the people fed up of Nats letting houses to be increasingly treated as income-yielding financial instruments had their hopes pinned on Cindy and Co. to bring about change is utterly heartbreaking.

Single mum of 15-month old 'beyond exhausted' after being rejected from more than 130 Tauranga rentals listed for up to $620/week

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I want to see various ministers tell her face to face that "this is a first class problem to have".

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That was National's mistake. What they should have done is hinted at vague reform after getting elected on a platform of extremely specific reform and then constantly push the dates out - but continue to maintain when it does happen, it will be 'bold'.

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Indeed, National have learned from Nationals mistakes. Wait, Labour have learned from Nationals mistakes. Wait... who is in power now? I can't tell the difference.

I think we may as well just vote for a colour.

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What's wrong with living in mom and dad's spare room for until she can save enough deposit for a small place of her own? Willing to spend $620 a week? Suck it up for two years and she can save enough deposit for a place. Seriously. At least she's got a spare room in her parents' place. Immigrants have nothing!

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You do realise that in 2 years time, house prices are likely to be 30-40% higher than today and LVRs will likely mean she is never able to save enough for a deposit?

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Better than blowing it on $620/week rent now. If she can't buy in 2 years so be it. She could probably move to Australia with the cash in hand.

What I'm saying is, paying that amount on rent for a solo parent working part time is very hard and not recommended.

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We don't know anything about her life. Maybe she doesn't have a good relationship with one or both parents.
The thing is she SHOULDN'T have to do this.
What a joke our country is.

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Exactly!

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Auckland houses are like Bitcions, a limited and finite supply.

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Just make sure not in Elon's BTC position.

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"a limited and finite supply"

like Picassos... OR shit from my dog

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I know from personal experience that second one is in endless supply.

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And it's entirely due to government!

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Aaaah Cindy, communications degree from Waikato university. Flash news, communications degree is not real degree and Waikato uni is not real uni. There, I said it!

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OooooOOOooooo no you di-int! You badass.

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Had to be said.

Any news on housing policy yet......? .........chirp chirp

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There's a new covid case, duuuh! There's no way to solve both the housing crisis and the covid outbreak at the same time!

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Merit and aptitude don't matter in NZ; it's all about the ability to spin a good yarn.

To succeed in any NZ public sector role, one should be able to build relationships, communicate effectively, be a "people's person", have strong "partnering skills", be excellent at presentations, articulate and confident, etc.

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Well she doesn't know much about anything, but she sells it really well...

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The situation has become ridiculous. Palmy has no natural boundary but prices are rising at $1000 a day, according to today's paper. Jaffas, Wellingtonians and foreigners are flooding into the city forcing a housing crisis. Palmy residents are now looking at hick towns like feilding, marton and ashurst.

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I was in Palmy the other day. It seemed quite nice.

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A clear sign that demand is "not real" in the sense that people aren't buying those houses to live in, but to park their money.

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The RBNZ wants this, zero returns in the bank, means people look for alternatives. The system is well and truely broken. Interest rates will stay low forever now, as the debt mountain is too big too fail. Mr Orr has a lot to answer for...but of course he'll hide behind 'We're just following our mandate' and 'We're just following global best practice'. He's the definition of a coward. Along with J.A and G.R These 3 should be hung out to try. If you need to point a finger at the cause of NZ's coming equality and economic mess you know who to point at.

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Start by pointing the finger at yourself, half of New Zealand voted for Labour. Personally I just don't know how people couldn't see through them after a first term which was an epic fail and nothing got delivered. They were saved by the bell and that bell was Covid. People voted for them just because the way they handled Covid ? unbelievable. Whats worse is that despite all the complaints if the other parties cannot get their s*@t together they will get a THIRD term for sure.

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There's a reason why Labour's been losing popularity to the Greens in the past few months. If I remember correctly, 4%-ish went from Labour to Greens.

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Indeed. Who wants to live in Palmy?! Retire in the Marlborough Sounds and live off your rental income from Palmy houses. Let those army soldiers and Massey students pay for your lifestyle.

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Don't forget to raise the rent at every opportunity while telling your tenants that they're lazy POS's and they should work hard and pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Oh, and no pets! (Apart from the rats that live in the attic, and the ant colony in the wall)

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.. In the end? be it govt or RBNZ? - No One absolutely dare to ..touch/do more into controlling the Banks.
OZ Banks, are like open all seasons drug dealer marketing & sales activity.

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My only conclusion in this is all done deliberately to increase money circulation via fiscal or inflation forces. If people have to rent, they ask for government support (Fiscal spending). If interest rates rise, costs will be past on to tenants with rent rises, can't afford it, ask for government support (Fiscal spending). So at the end of the day they want to increase money supply, through fiscal or inflation or both. And as we all know government debt is a non issue, money creation is free.

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Two certainties in life: Death and Paying taxes,
(Except in NZ you can swindle the paying taxes part in the Aotearoa housing ponzi scheme).

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Yip. So in NZ it's Death and Increased House Prices.

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I don't know about Auckland but in Tauranga I am finding it next to impossible to find a reasonable section. Those few that are available are ridiculously priced and the rest have been captured by building companies so you are trapped into paying their very high prices.
Our councils are totally failing in one of their prime roles of ensuring that the cities have plenty of room to grow.
Clearly ours has been totally dysfunctional. One has to strongly suspect that there are strong vested interests at play in this area. As this whole area of the market has collapsed the government should step in and mandate wholesale land development throughout NZ as they did successfully in Christchurch.

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I'm in the same boat. The utter incompetence of Tauranga City Council in providing enough land for development to occur is astounding, and it's a situation that they were well aware of at least five years ago. I've mentioned here before that Council's executive leadership has spoken of raising land prices in order to make intensification more viable for developers. The collusion between Council and the big developers runs deep. It's simply not a place to raise a family anymore.

There's very few infill sections left. You're right all the building companies have everything else so it's impossible to build anything less than the median price, given that everything has restrictive covenants on it.

Queenstown/Wanaka is always mentioned as one of the most expensive areas for housing, but to be honest, from what I've seen you get much more bang for your buck there than in Tauranga. And less traffic.

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The Government have a statutory manager in Tauranga. They could fix the problem here if they chose to. Will they? I doubt it.
Ardern has nailed her colours to the property ponzie and stated that she will not let prices fall.
She is further right wing than the National party and rejected their offer of a bipartisan approach to bypass the RMA act to release a lot more land as per Christchurch emergency provisions. So what sort of person does that make her?

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Tauranga - one amazing beach + a dull, traffic clogged and expensive city

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What right do the council have to define the living density? If this dense living is such a good proposition, then it should stack up in a free and open market. If private companies exercised monopoly power to manipulate a market like this, the commerce commission should prosecute them. I interpret talk like that from the council as just spin used to justify corrupt manipulation of supply to favor other vested interests. As the stupid labour government found out with the Kiwibuild disasters that they just about had to give away, people are just not interested in buying minute little rabbit hutches. Try bringing up 3 kids, working from home and storing the stuff that a typical active kiwi family needs in these garage-less, landless 70 m2 shoe boxes. One way ticket to mental illness, disturbed kids and marriage breakdown.
I note that these "wise and honest" councilors are the first to claim that they do not have the money to fund the required infrastructure. Those costs should come from the land developers who should be forced both cough up AND charge less for the sections under the force of a lot stronger competition. The councils are presiding over a regime where they are maximising the profits going into the pockets of the developers while maximising the costs that come out of the public purse.

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Developers to pay for the infrastructure upgrades whilst also building low density family homes to the liking of Chris-M? Good thing you are not in charge mate. This kiwi attitude of being owed a quarter acre plot with a four bedroom weatherboard home is the other half of the problem.

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Yes the word on the street/from developers(perhaps to suit themselves also) is that the banks are requiring the developers to deal with the building companies as they can hold them to account as in past some buyers have left town.The building companies love this as they can overcharge for little shite sections and homes that a local builder could build with a local owner for a whole lot less.
This is a nationwide occurrence now thats slipped under the radar,try and buy a section in Hamilton now?

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Where are you looking Chris ? I spent a year trying to find something down here and considered all the options. Pricing is VERY area dependent and if for example you are set on Pyes Pa and the lakes then your gonna have to pay for it. There is a bit of snobbery down here in relation to suburbs but the reality is that pretty much everywhere is less than 20min to the CBD so it doesn't matter in my book. Bought in a cheaper area in the end but it still makes Auckland look pretty sick when you compare prices on what you get.

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And.....
Beware the current flood plain laws.
A new place on Harbour Drive being built on raised land, that's probably up as high as half the first story of the old place next door; then the slab has been laid. Cost must be significant just for the earthworks (and embedded storm drainage).
Yet across the road; 25 metres away, and older semi (built I'd guess 25 years ago for all-up $500K? before the current flood-plain rules) went for $2.8m last week.
No way they could build a replacement for it at the existing ground level, and if anyone wants to redevelop it, the land-raising cost is going to be expensive.

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Any where except Papamoa. Very few available.
25 adds on Realestate.co.nz
19 adds under $450,000 on Trade me

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Papamoa is now pretty horrible, small sections that are getting way out and small to boot if you want to build. At the end of the day its really finding an area and a house site you could live on and build. Try to find a place out there myself but it was like banging my head on a brick wall and when I got to $1.2mil and still couldn't find anything I likeed I gave up. My partner did that and went with Venture development and tweaked the house design slightly and you get to choose everything from the carpet to the door handles and tap fittings. I don't necessarily think building yourself is any better than a package deal with house and land from a developer. Her house is not even a year old and its already valued at $100K more than was paid for it. She went new, it was cheaper than existing older houses but you have the inconvenience of having to find somewhere to live for months while its built unless your already renting. Developers tend to snap up the sections first and generally the better ones as well, its just the way it down here.

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RE Lobbyist is in motion - trying to calm fear/ doubts :

https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/tony-alexander-dont-expect-a-slam-dunk-e…

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Plenty of weak arguments in that one!
As long as it spruiks property it's welcome at One Roof!!!

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Flow on effect from the 2020 lockdown?

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Excellent! Double checkmate!

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