- Homeowners spent 13% less on renovations in 2024, focusing on budget-friendly improvements.

- There was a 190% increase in home extensions, but outdoor work like gardening dropped significantly.

- Bathroom renovations were popular, making up 60% of kitchen-bathroom jobs, with spending more cautious.

Kiwis have been watching their pennies when it comes to home improvements, with the average renovation spend taking a dive in the last 12 months.

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Figures released to OneRoof by Builderscrack don’t show any drop-off in demand for work but they show a definite shift towards more budget-friendly renovations.

Builderscrack spokeswoman Rachel Radford said: “This tells us that home improvement was still a priority for many homeowners across New Zealand, but at a slightly lower budget.”

The online marketplace, which matches tradies with jobs, said there had been a 190% lift in the number of requests for extensions and bathroom and kitchen upgrades.

Otautahi Builders, in Christchurch, is gearing up for a busier year and has employed more staff. Photo / Alana Shinn

Two years of interest rate rises put constraints on renovation budgets. Photo / Alex Burton

Bathroom renovations were particularly in vogue last year, with 60% of the jobs listed under the website’s kitchen bathroom category weighted towards bathrooms.

However, outdoor work such as gardening and fencing dropping around 20% year-on-year.

Spending was down 13% across the board, with the average spend on a bathroom or kitchen dropping 20%.

Radford said the increase in home extensions and alterations told her that homeowners had done the maths and decided to invest in their existing property rather than selling up to get their dream home.

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She said the decrease in garden jobs was likely the result of people choosing to cut back on outside help and do it themselves.

Radford said while most of the job requests came from homeowners wanting to make conventional improvements, some of the more interesting requests included a deck repair for a marae in rural Moawhango, a 100-year-old heritage renovation in the Waikato, and a 230sqm architectural new build on a clifftop section in Rodney.

She said Builderscrack was on track to process more than 9000 jobs this month, a three-year high for the site.

Wellington City Renovations chief executive Lewis Harsent said every building company saw a drop in workload last year because higher interest rates had impacted people’s household budgets.

At the start of 2024, Harsent’s workload shrunk, with most of the bookings for small repair jobs or limited renovations.

Otautahi Builders, in Christchurch, is gearing up for a busier year and has employed more staff. Photo / Alana Shinn

Otautahi Builders director Matt Quinn said some of the renovations were long overdue. Photo / Alana Shinn

Otautahi Builders, in Christchurch, is gearing up for a busier year and has employed more staff. Photo / Alana Shinn

Homeowners spent 20% less on kitchen and bathroom renovations in 2024 compared to the previous year. Photo / Alana Shinn

“Last year I was lucky if I was [booked] six weeks ahead, which was a scary, scary time. At one point at the start of last year, I had two weeks of work confirmed and that’s the lowest amount of booked work I’ve ever had coming in.”

However, the drop in interest rates had brought more money into the market. “Confidence has come back in the market and we are booking quite a lot of work. We are booked out until November 2025 now.”

The increased workload has also seen him employ 50% more staff. “It is on its way up, which is good and it is needed – a lot of people were struggling for a little while there.”

Matt Quinn, of Otautahi Builders, agreed work was starting to ramp up. Both he and his contractors were gearing up for a busy 2025. “We are hearing of a lot of people are wanting to get back into it [building work] after a two-year hiatus.”

He said the bathroom and kitchen renovations were still the most popular requests, but warned they could be more expensive than people expected.

“A lot of these bathroom renos, these bathrooms are just hanging on,” he said. “An older kitchen works whereas an older bathroom can cause damage to your home with leaks and stuff like that.”

However, he had also noticed homeowners being a lot more conscious about how they spend their money and doing a lot more research about what they wanted done and installed rather than just leaving the tradies to decide everything.

Traffic Group global technical and operations manager Kim Reiche said lending constraints, interest rates and the house values dropping reducing the equity in the homes had resulted in a “perfect storm” and made these projects challenging.

The company, whose brands include Refresh Renovations and Zone Landscaping, had also noticed a sizeable lift in enquiries from people who were at the early stages of considering a renovation at the end of last year and in the first two working weeks of this year.

“I have been involved with Refresh for 13 years now and to be honest this is nothing we haven’t seen before. The reality is we need better quality houses and knocking down to rebuild often is too costly so renovations are still a very viable option.”

She also believed home and garden renovations wouldn’t get any cheaper than it was now. “... today will be the most cost-effective time to do renovations – tomorrow will always be more expensive. Prices will not be coming down any time soon.”

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