House consents highest since 1970s with multi-unit dwellings driving growth

According to Statistics New Zealand, the number of new homes consented in the year to December 2019 reached a new high with 15,154 homes planned. 

“Auckland consented over 15,000 new homes for the first time in 2019, significantly higher than the previous peak of about 13,000 consented in the mid-1970s,” Statistics New Zealand construction statistics manager Melissa McKenzie said. “Auckland’s population doubled over this time and is now about 1.6 million.”

Apartments, retirement village units, townhouses, and other multi-unit home numbers drove new home growth in Auckland in 2019, rising 29 per cent in the December year, while the number of new stand-alone houses rose 6.8 percent. More than half of the new homes consented in Auckland in 2019 were multi-unit dwellings.

“Auckland consented almost three-quarters of New Zealand’s apartments, and about half the country’s townhouses, flats, and units in 2019,” Ms McKenzie said.

Nationally, 37,538 new homes were consented in the December 2019 year, the highest annual number since 1974. The overall record for new homes consented is still 40,025 in the February 1974 year, when the population of New Zealand was around 3 million, compared with about 4.9 million today.

In the non-residential sector, consents were also up across the majority of sectors. Non-residential building consents totalled $7.5 billion in the year to December with those classed as education facilities, shops, restaurants and bars, as well as offices, administration and public transport buildings, having the highest values – together totalling $3.2 billion. 

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^{Banner image: Lakeshore Springs Apartments by Three Sixty Architecture.}