December 2021 enters consent record books

The year ended December 2021 saw one final consent record fall thanks to a substantial increase compared with 2020

There were 24% more new home consents issued in the year ended December 2021 than the year ended December 2020, which meant another new record of 48,899 homes consented in a year – the second time a milestone has tumbled in 2021. Before that, a record 41,028 were consented in March 2021 – which beat the previous best of 40,025, set in February 1974.

“This concludes a record-breaking year for new home consents, with multi-unit homes surging 36% to 23,335 in 2021, and stand-alone houses rising 15% to 25,564, compared with 2020,” said Construction Statistics Manager Michael Heslop.

The number of new homes consented per 1,000 residents across the country increased to 9.6 in the year ended December 2021, an increase of 2.8 from the December 2020 year.

More homes, reduced size

More homes are being consented, but they’re generally smaller. The average floor area of all new homes consented in 2021 was 154m², down from 156 m² in 2020.

This drop in size is due to the types of home being consented, explained Heslop.

“The decrease in the average size of new homes consented in recent years is partly due to the increasing proportion of multi-unit homes, which tend to be smaller than most stand-alone houses.”

Multi-unit dwellings dominate

Retirement village units represented the largest increase compared to the year ended December 2020 (up 53.1%), with townhouses, flats and units following close behind (up 40.7%). The amount of houses consented in the year ended December 2021, compared to the previous December year end, increased 15%, while 11% more apartments were consented.

The number of seasonally adjusted new homes consented in December 2021 rose 0.6%; however, quarterly, the seasonally adjusted number of new homes fell 1.2%, the first quarterly fall since the March 2020 quarter.

Up and up

Many regions experienced a significant increase in new dwellings consented in the year ending December 2021, compared with December 2020 year end, led by Canterbury (up 31%), Waikato (up 27%), the North Island not including Wellington, Auckland or Waikato (up 25%), Auckland (up 23%) and the rest of the South Island (up 16%).

The average value per square metre of all new homes consented in 2021 was $2,497 – a 5.8% increase from $2,360 in 2020. Stats NZ noted that the actual cost of building tends to be higher than the original consent value in many cases.

Boom for non-residential building consents

In the year ended December 2021, non-residential building consents totalled $8.2bn, up 16% from the December 2020 year. The building types with the highest value were:

• Education buildings – $1.5bn (up 22%).
• Factories – $1.3bn (up 62%).
• Storage buildings – $1.1bn (down 8.8%).