At a high level, the value of consent approvals over the last 12 months was:

• Residential New Builds at $19,997B
• Residential A&A at $2,472B
• Commercial (New Builds & Additions) at $8,940B.

It will be well documented that residential consent approvals remain at over 50,000 for the last 12 months. This is measured by the number of code completions at closer to 35,000 for the last 12 months. With new builds dominated by the growth in townhouses and apartments, what will this look like in the future?

Alterations & Additions grow to $2.5B for the 12 months, up from $1.9B in 2019. This part of the market would appear to be busier than a 20% increase in value would represent, particularly considering that construction cost increases would easy add up to 20% over the last 2 years. Is this a question of consent applications being undervalued more than they have in the past?

Finally, commercial work reached a new 12 month high, up 20% from 2020. Since 2020, the value of factory consents has doubled, with over half a billion added to education, storage, offices and of course healthcare facilities and hospitals. 

For a full summary of March's building consents please read the release from Stats NZ.