National figures on new homes consents for 2019 show that the average floor area of new homes consented was 148 square metres. That’s about 21 percent (42 square metres) smaller than the peak median size of 200 square metres in 2010. They’ve been steadily dropping since then. If you’d been watching new homes spring up around the country, it may be no surprise to learn that new houses are getting smaller.
And it’s not just in city and suburban centres where multi-unit town houses or apartments are being built.
“The drop in new home sizes is primarily due to stand-alone houses getting smaller,” says Stats NZ construction statistics manager Melissa McKenzie.
“While stand-alone houses still account for the majority of new homes in New Zealand, an increasing proportion of townhouses, apartments, retirement village units, and other multi-unit homes consented in recent years has also contributed to smaller overall home sizes.”
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Across the country, new stand-alone houses were around 180 square metres, and the median floor area of multi-unit homes has hovered around 100 square metres (which includes a portion of any shared spaces).
McKenzie notes that the fact that floor areas in Auckland were getting smaller – down 60 square metres on 2010 sizes – is not surprising, when more than half the building consents are for multi-unit homes. That’s a significant shift from ten years ago, when multi-unit homes were only 16 percent of consents.
But at 37,538 new home consents in December, we’re still catching up with New Zealand’s home building peak of 1974, when 40,025 new homes were consented in February that year (for a population of 3 million, compared with about 4.9 million today).
Evolving as we go
The average home’s size was smaller, at 110 square metres, and generally didn’t include an attached garage (which today adds about 36 square metres to a house consent.
The trending down of house sizes does not surprise Caroline McDowall who, as acting deputy chief executive of government housing organisation Kainga Ora, is looking after an urban development of about 40,000 new homes across Auckland over the next 10-15 years, worth approximately $30 billion.
Median house sizes over time across developments like Auckland’s Hobsonville Point, she says are tracking downwards. The earliest homes in 2012 had an average floor size was just over 200 square metres, mostly in standalone homes but the first terraced houses were being built with an average size of 177sqm, revolutionary for the time.
By 2020 for houses currently selling off the plans, the average floor size has dropped to just under 146 sq metres. The mix now includes one and two bedroom apartments, some starting at 69sqm.
“We’re taking advantage of new typologies that match new ways of living,” McDowall says. “It’s evolving as we go, but it’s up to our building partners. They are meeting market demand, as they’re selling everything.”
McDowall says that the organisation prefers to talk about rightsizing, rather than downsizing, which more closely reflects the sorts and sizes of homes that meet individual’s needs.
“Right size is different for a first home buyer, for people with kids. We have a range of sizes – it could be a 200 square metre three storey terrace. What we do know is that the overall footprint of the house – the amount it sits on – is smaller with an attached house.”
McDowall says that buyers who are choosing proximity to amenities ahead of a large house on a large piece of land, are finding that the smaller house reduces their cost of living with things like more cost-effective utility costs or other sustainable features. She adds that right sizing is about putting in more than just houses, that it includes comprehensive planning for things like town centres, schools and health facilities.
“So you’re only paying for the square footage but it feels like much more because things are distributed around a development."
McDowell says that individual build partners developing the super-lots for Kainga Ora evolve their mix of properties as they go.
Need for density
Stats NZ found sizes vary across the Auckland isthmus – from the biggest in Howick, with a median floor area at 269 square metres, to Manurewa, where the median was half that at 152 sq m.
In Howick, just over 70 percent of all new homes consented are still stand-alone houses. Barfoot and Thompson agent Robin Liu says that is because pieces of land are large – 1000 to 2000 square metres in some desirable parts like Cockle or Mellons Bays - and so houses are too.
He says that as local zoning means that a subdivided plot has to be at least 600 square metres, plots stay un-subdivided. But Liu sees a need for density to achieve an affordable price point.
"A single level brick cross lease ‘granny’ flat is now over $1m, it used to be affordable,” he says. “Developers are starting to come into Howick central, near shops and schools and I think there’s a demand for this. We need high density homes to support Kiwis to be able to afford a house.”
Long time Harcourts agent Karl Vermeulen agrees, saying that right now the low end is terrace houses starting at around $900,000, which is more affordable than a bigger town house at $1.2m to $1.5m, or stand-alone houses that can go up to several million, but not cheap. He points to an auction last week of a seven year old home on a half share of 1600 sq m plot that 20 registered bidders pushed up to $2.147m - $667,000 over CV.
He said until now, most builders wouldn’t put on a house smaller than 220 square metres, to match the larger plot sizes.
“What’s selling is four or five bedrooms, or home and income for extended family,” he says.
But that’s changing.
Taking off
“Howick used to be the ‘sleepy suburb’. We’re only just seeing the first signs of terrace and intensified [building], we’ve lagged behind the city for terrace houses and it’s just the last year started to take off.
“It’s more to do with market demand - demand is just coming to the market now.”
To the south, Auckland’s smallest home consents were in Manurewa. Ray White agent Tom Rawson, a developer himself, says that’s because there is huge demand.
And, with section sizes that are still 800 sq metres or even bigger there is the opportunity to build more densely.
“An average section size of 800 sq m can be chopped into four properties. There is more demand, a 150 sq m house can fit three or four bedrooms, even five, it’ll fly out the door.”
Rawson says that most properties don’t add square metre-age with internal double garages, there’s parking in a carport or even uncovered, but that brings a price of a new built place to $680,000 compared to $1.6 m for a new 260 square metres with garage in Howick.
Demand is huge. Last week Rawson had eight bidders for a central Manurewa 872 square metre property with a scheme plan for six two-bedroom units of 84 square metres. It went for $805,000, well above the CV of $630,000 and he says both first home buyers and retirees will snap them up.
Stats NZ says that last year, just three percent of new homes consented in Waitemata (covering the inner city and fringe suburbs) were stand-alone house, the rest were multi-unit developments.
- This content was created in partnership by Kāinga Ora
