Construction cost blowouts and the damage done
A Rotorua couple have blown their dream-home budget by $500,000 on a house that still isn’t finished after two and a half years. They are caught up in the building crisis in which house and land packages have jumped 20 per cent in one year. One company says a Tauranga home that cost $750,000 to build a year ago now costs $900,000.
It has taken me a year to build a deck from first phone call to draughtsperson to finish. I am a carpenter with 35 years’ experience and feel a bit embarrassed about it but everyone slowed me down. The draughtspeople were the worst I have used — there were two of them but they were not worth the money they charged me. There will be no more building on my house — material prices are mental. The gib stopper made $1000 a day on my job — I can only dream of that money as a carpenter. Good luck to anyone building without very deep pockets.
— Mark M
The cost increases are terrifying. I can understand some of them but structural steel jumping 64 per cent in one year? Can anyone explain why this has risen so much? I don’t understand what would drive a cost increase of this magnitude. As I understand it, over 90 per cent of New Zealand’s steel requirements are produced at Glenbrook.
— Paul T
If you are thinking of building at the moment, don’t. If you want to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years, do.
— Mark I
So it’s probably not a good time for the Government to introduce more
costs with new window and insulation standards. Cost of living crisis . . . Let’s add more costs . . . Unreal.
— Daniel S This is New Zealand. Housing always goes up in price. Just this time it’s the cost to build.
— Anaru B
It’s a shame our timber mills were shut down. We now export the logs overseas for processing, with increased shipping costs.
— Kathryn M
I do sympathise with these families and their broken dreams. However, the apparent total lack of cost control measures, despite the more than adequate public warnings about cost blowouts, is difficult to understand.
Anybody who suffers a drop in income will match that with a drop in their expenditure. In the same vein, if you suffer a cost rise then you must match that with a drop in size, quantity, quality etc of your expenditure.
— Alexander M
■ Republished comments may be edited at the editor’s discretion.