Three-peat success for multi-unit homes

The year ended May 2022 marks the third month in a row that annual number of consents for new multi-unit homes exceeded those of new standalone houses

There were 26,479 multi-unit homes consented in the year ended May 2022, an increase of 36% compared to the year ended May 2021. At the same time, growth for standalone houses was up a mere 2.1% to 24,536.

But that’s not the only record that the year ended May 2022 broke – there were 51,015 new homes were consented, a 17% increase on the year ended May 2021.

“Prior to 2021, the highest number of new homes consented was 40,025 in the year ended February 1974,” said Stats NZ Construction and Property Statistics Manager Michael Heslop.

“May 2022’s annual record is now nearly 10,000 homes higher than what was set in the year ended March 2021. Since March 2021, we have continued to see record-breaking levels of new homes being consented, driven by the growth in multi-unit homes.”

The number of new dwellings consented in the month of May 2022 was 4,528. Of those, 2,135 were townhouses, flats and units, 2,047 were standalone houses, 177 were apartments and 169 were retirement village units. This is an increase of just under 1,000 compared to April 2022, which consented 3,719 new dwellings.

Regional record breaking

Wellington, Otago, Southland and Auckland broke records for the highest number of new dwellings consented in the year ended May 2022 compared to the year ended May 2021 – with 3,899, 2,540, 482 and 21,688 homes respectively consented.

There were also big gains for Canterbury (8,529 or 34% more new homes) and Waikato (5,149 or 12% more homes).

Despite the records, the seasonally adjusted number of new homes consented in May 2022 fell 0.5% compared with May 2021. This decline followed a seasonally adjusted fall of 8.6% in April 2022.

Canterbury boom

New homes consented per 1,000 residents across New Zealand was 10, up from 8.5 in the year ended May 2021.

Among the biggest increases were Canterbury, which rose from 9.8 homes consented per 1,000 residents to 13.1 and Auckland (10.8 to 12.6). Conversely, Hawke’s Bay (5.9 to 5.4), Taranaki (6.4 to 6.0) and Tasman (10.9 to 9.9) suffered drops.

Non-residential building consents growth continues

In the year ended May 2022, non-residential building consents totalled $8.9bn, up 12% from the year ended May 2021. Non-residential construction prices as measured by the capital goods price index rose 10% in the year ended March 2022.

The building types with the highest value were:

• Education buildings – 1.5bn (up 1.4%).
• Offices, administration and public transport buildings – $1.4 billion (up 25%)
• Storage buildings – $1.3bn (up 28%).