New-home buyers face lengthy wait
Builders say longer construction times are part and parcel of a busy industry.
Owners of new homes now have to wait four months longer for their houses to be finished than they would have done 10 years ago.
Statistics New Zealand data shows that it now takes about 10 months for a new home to be signed off, after the dwelling consent is issued.
That is in contrast with six months in 1998 and 12 months in 2008.
The wait was stable at nine years from 2011 through to 2015.
Bigger houses take longer to finish but the data showed houses in Hamilton, Matamata-Piako, Waipa, Tauranga, Selwyn and Waimakariri were finished more quickly.
Building was slower in the Far North, Whangarei, Kaipara, ThamesCoromandel, Wellington, Kaiko¯ura, Buller and Christchurch.
Whangarei builder Craig Cogan said it was possible for a standard house to be finished in as little as six months.
But he said some bigger building firms struggled because more projects were sold by their salespeople than the building teams could handle.
They would have to work on one site for part of a day then switch to another.
‘‘We tend not to do that because I wear all the hats, at least for sales and management, so I know when I sell that the start date is realistic. That might be in three months’ time.’’
Another builder, who did not want to be identified, said the real lags came in during the consent process, as councils struggled with the volume of applications coming through.
The Auckland Council has been sending building consent applications to Wellington to be processed.
Grant Florence, chief executive of the Certified Builders Association, said it was unlikely that building teams would be on site for a full 10 months.
He said there were sometimes issues getting the final code compliance certificate signed off, or landscaping to be finalised. ‘‘It doesn’t reflect the average time on site.’’
But he said it should be expected that building would take longer during busy times. ‘‘Builders are trying to manage resources and subtrades.’’
They might operate more sites than normal, he said. ‘‘That does lead to some delays and the industry needs to get better at that. Managing multiple sites and multiple trades … it does OK but it could do better and that would lead to better productivity.’’
David Kelly, chief executive of Master Builders, said it was an issue of supply and demand.
He said a challenge for homeowners was to decide whether they wanted a fixed-price option, or a more flexible margin price structure.
With a fixed price, the builder took the risk of over-runs in cost or time to complete the project.
‘‘The builder has all that risk of rising cost and the challenges around getting subcontractors at the right time. They have to build in a bigger margin for a fixed price.’’
If people were willing to agree to pay a margin on top of the builder’s costs, they could share some of the risk and potentially pay less.