Consent applications to build new homes nearly halved in Tasman last year, to just 297 - the largest drop in the country and the lowest in the region for six years.
According to Statistics NZ, the number of new dwelling consents for houses to the end of January in Tasman was 47.7 per cent down on the previous 12 months when there were 568 consents issued. The number of consents for multi-unit homes also dropped, from 91 the previous year to 60.
Tasman District Council’s team leader building support, Courtenay Lynn, says consents have steadily decreased since 2022. This has been attributed to product shortages and increasing costs in the building industry including supplies, wages and section prices, plus the cost of living, interest rates and tighter lending restrictions.
During the peak, she says the majority of new dwellings were within new subdivisions. The subdivisions which contributed to the boom still have sections available, however she says group home companies have reported sales have significantly decreased in 2023. The decrease in new dwelling consents is attributed to consumer demand and higher interest rates.
“We are expecting consenting numbers and new dwellings to slowly increase in 2024. It will be a few years until we get back to numbers like we saw in 2021 and 2022.”
The latest figures are similar to the number of consents issued for the year ended January 2018 which was 298 houses, before the number of new build consents soared to its peak through 2022. At that time, Tasman had one of the highest number of new dwelling consents in the country (including all builds) for its population at 11.1 per 1,000 residents, coming in just behind Canterbury and then Auckland.
This past year to the end of January, Tasman was down to six dwelling consents per 1,000 residents which was about the middle of the road when comparing regions. Canterbury continued to plough ahead at 10.2 new dwelling consents per 1,000 residents.
In January this year, 11 consents were issued in Tasman to build new houses compared with 25 the previous January. Three of those consents this year were for Richmond builds and four were in the Moutere-Waimea area. For the previous January, 10 consents were for Richmond and nine for Moutere and Waimea.
