Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Mike Blackburn: Construction Analyst on the boom in housing consents and construction in Canterbury

Transcript

Mike Blackburn: Construction Analyst on the boom in housing consents and construction in Canterbury · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Construction in the South is booming, with one in five
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: new Zealand homes being built in Canterbury. In the past year,
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  Speaker 2: six five hundred new homes were consented by Canterbury councils,
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  Speaker 2: equating to nine point four homes per thousand residents, the
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  Speaker 2: highest rate in the country. Canterbury is also the only
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  Speaker 2: region still building more homes than before the COVID pandemic.
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  Speaker 2: Construction analyst Mike Blackburn joins me, Now, thank you for.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Your time, Mike, Good morning, Francesca.
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  Speaker 2: So why is Canterbury growing so much more than the
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  Speaker 2: rest of the country.
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  Speaker 1: Well, look, I think there's a number of combinations. Firstly,
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  Speaker 1: following the extraordinary peak of building activity in twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: one and twenty twenty two, the building concent numbers across
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  Speaker 1: the whole country declined significantly, and unfortunately for many other
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  Speaker 1: parts of the country, building concent numbers are continuing to decline.
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  Speaker 1: One of the reasons why Canterbury as a stand out
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  Speaker 1: region at the moment is that those numbers have plateaued
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  Speaker 1: and an actual factor, the numbers that I've been tracking
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  Speaker 1: have actually shown a slight increase over the last six
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  Speaker 1: months or so, and The number one reason why Canterbury
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  Speaker 1: has continued to do so well is primarily because of
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  Speaker 1: internal migration. So that's people moving from other places in
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  Speaker 1: New Zealand to Canterbury.
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  Speaker 2: Well, why wouldn't you construction? I believe that construction costs
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  Speaker 2: in Christy to the second highest in New Zealand. That
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  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be slowing things.
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  Speaker 1: Down, looks I'm not so convinced about that. Certainly, when
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  Speaker 1: you look at the average price of a residential house
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  Speaker 1: here in christ Church or or sort of certainly the
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  Speaker 1: wider Canterbury area, it's it's at around about seven hundred
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  Speaker 1: and thirty thousand dollars, and that's sort of significantly cheaper,
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  Speaker 1: you know, twenty percent twenty five percent cheaper than a
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  Speaker 1: new house in Auckland. And so I think that's another
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  Speaker 1: reason why we are seeing people wanting to sort of
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  Speaker 1: move down here is the fact that overall the economic
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  Speaker 1: in Canterbury is actually pretty good. Jobs are relatively against
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  Speaker 1: the trend of the rest of the country where we're
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  Speaker 1: seeing a rise in unemployment. Jobs are still relatively plentiful
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  Speaker 1: here in christ Church. Pay rates relatively on average with
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  Speaker 1: many of our other larger cities and of course this
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  Speaker 1: is the reason why people are choosing to sort of
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  Speaker 1: relocate here to Canterbury. If you can, if you don't
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  Speaker 1: have to be tied to a desk in an Auckland
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  Speaker 1: or Hamilton, and you can get a job down here
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  Speaker 1: in lovely Canterbury, then it's a little bit like winning lotto.
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  Speaker 2: So the number of consents is high, people actually buying
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  Speaker 2: these homes. Is the demand there?
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Look, I spent sort of all day long
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  Speaker 1: talking to builders, developers, realist that agents, and they're saying that.
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  Speaker 1: Certainly over the last next months, the telephone has started
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  Speaker 1: to ring again. Sales inquiries are up again, just reinforcing
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  Speaker 1: what I said about people moving in from other parts
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  Speaker 1: of the country. They're also seeing that same sort of
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  Speaker 1: level of demand from people outside of Canterbury. So look,
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  Speaker 1: relative to the number of dwellings that were being consented
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  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, year the market is down.
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  Speaker 1: But look, I think that Canterbury is very very well
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  Speaker 1: placed to come out of the currents that have downturn
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  Speaker 1: much much faster than the rest of the country. The
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  Speaker 1: current building consent numbers reinforce that, and I'm really really
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  Speaker 1: positive about the next couple of years for new house
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  Speaker 1: construction here in Canterbury.
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  Speaker 2: I was just about to say will it last?
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  Speaker 1: Look Look, I think I think it will. I mean
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  Speaker 1: population growth is that as the number one driver for
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  Speaker 1: why we build new houses. Look, Selwyn has been one
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  Speaker 1: of the fastest growing regions in New Zealand for the
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  Speaker 1: last three or four year years. There's a number of
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  Speaker 1: combinations which sort of we need to build houses effectively.
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  Speaker 1: You did mention before about the cost of construction. Obviously
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  Speaker 1: a number of the changes that the government are proposing
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  Speaker 1: to make it easier and cheaper to build houses will
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  Speaker 1: go a long way. Fast tracked land development has been
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  Speaker 1: another key thing to make sure that we've got plenty
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  Speaker 1: of land supply going forward. I think that certainly here
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  Speaker 1: in Canterbury, it's a very very popular place. House prices
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  Speaker 1: are proportionately much much better. The economy's looking really, really good.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a great couple of
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  Speaker 1: years for building houses.
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  Speaker 2: Mike, really nice to talk to you. That was Mike
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  Speaker 2: Blackburn there. I don't worry about Australia. Head to christ
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Church Folks.
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  Speaker 1: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 4:49
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• 4:52
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