Home consents remain high as Canterbury hits new record

Ōtautahi – A total of 50,653 new homes were consented in the year ended August 2022, up 8.9 percent compared with the same period last year, Stats NZ said today.

"Homes were consented at high levels in most regions, particularly in Canterbury which reached a new annual record,” construction and property statistics manager Michael Heslop says.

“The increase in the number of homes consented was largely driven by multi-unit homes.”

There were 27,593 multi-unit homes consented in the year ended August 2022, up 30 percent compared with the year ended August 2021. There were 23,060 stand-alone houses consented over the same period, down 8.9 percent.

Multi-unit homes include townhouses, apartments, retirement village units, and flats.

New homes consented, 12-month rolling totals, year ended March 1966 to August 2022

The four regions with the highest number of new homes consented in the year ended August 2022 compared with the year ended August 2021 were:

Auckland with 21,463 (up 7.7 percent)

Canterbury with 8691 (up 23 percent)

Waikato with 5076 (up 3.0 percent)

Wellington with 3875 (up 18 percent).

Canterbury, Northland (with 1549) and Southland (with 485) reached new annual records in the number of new homes consented.

The number of homes consented in Canterbury in the year ended August 2022 is now well above the post-earthquake rebuild peak of 7,308 in the year ended December 2014,” Heslop says.

Canterbury was the region with the highest number of new homes consented per 1000 residents in the year ended August 2022 with 13.4. This was followed by Auckland with 12.5 and Tasman with 10.4.

The national record for the number of new homes consented per 1,000 residents was 13.4 in the year ended December 1973.

Auckland dominates the total number of homes consented but, when population size is taken into account, Canterbury has been the leading region since the year ended January 2022.

The seasonally adjusted number of new homes consented in August 2022 fell 1.6 percent compared with July 2022. This follows a seasonally adjusted rise of 4.9 percent in July 2022.

The number of new homes consented can fluctuate from month to month due to large apartment and townhouse projects. The seasonally adjusted number of stand-alone houses consented, which excludes the more volatile categories, rose 1.8 percent in August 2022, following a 0.6 percent rise in July 2022.