Consents for new homes hits record

A rise in townhouses has helped consents for new homes to soar past the 1970s record to hit the highest level ever, but economists are asking how long the boom will last.

Consents for 41,028 new homes were issued in the year to March 30, according to the latest Stats NZ figures. That number was well up on the previous record of 40,025 in the year ended February 1974. It was also up 9.1 per cent on the March 2020 year.

Auckland was key to driving the increase, with a record 17,495 new homes consented in the March year. That equated to nearly 43 per cent of all new homes nationwide.

Other regions also had record numbers of new homes consented over the year, including Waikato, Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki, Manawatu¯ -Whanganui, and Tasman. There were 4128 new homes consented in the month of March and that number was the highest monthly total surpassing the October 1973 figure of 4081.

Of the consents issued in March, 2438 were for stand-alone houses, 1243 were for townhouses, flats and units, 276 were for retirement village units and 261 were for apartments.

Stats NZ construction statistics manager Michael Heslop said that within 10 years the number of new homes consented annually had gone from the lowest point since the 1940s to an all-time record.

‘‘The increased number of new homes consented in recent years has mostly been due to a rise in consents for higher density homes, such as townhouses.

The number of stand-alone houses consented in this period has been relatively flat,’’ Heslop said.

This was particularly the case in Auckland where consents for multi-unit homes, such as townhouses, rose sharply in the second half of last year and remained at high levels in the first three months of this year.

But the new homes consented for every 1000 residents was still below the 1970s peak, although it had been rising steadily from the lows around the time of the global financial crisis, Heslop said.

Just over eight new homes were consented per 1000 residents in the year ended March, which is fewer than the record of 13.4 in 1973. However, the record numbers in March suggested there was a large amount of residential work in the pipeline.

Infometrics economist Andrew Beattie said the consents figures were incredibly strong, particularly for townhouses, and helped maintain momentum in addressing the undersupply of housing.

Developers were looking for the best return and because land prices were so high, the lower per-square-metre cost of mediumdensity townhouses offered an attractive return, he said.